RIM and AT&T today announced the BlackBerry Torch 9800, the first BlackBerry to combine a physical keyboard and touch screen, and the first smartphone running the new BlackBerry 6 OS.
"Today AT&T and RIM are introducing the best BlackBerry device ever," AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega said.
The Torch is a sliding-keyboard smartphone with a 3.2-inch touch screen and a QWERTY keyboard that slides out below the screen. It packs a 5-megpaixel camera, 3G networking on AT&T's and foreign networks, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS. AT&T has full tech details for the Torch on its Web page.
Top features in the new BlackBerry 6 OS include universal search, a universal inbox, and of course the new Web browser, which should be more faithful to desktop Web pages and faster than previous BlackBerry browsers.
New media features include better use of album art in the media players and Wi-Fi syncing of music, wirelessly, with PCs. According to AT&T, the Torch can sync with both Windows Media Player and iTunes.
RIM CEO Mike Lazaridis said that the device is called the Torch because it uses a WebKit-based Web browser written by Torch Mobile, a company RIM acquired last year.
A feature called "auto wrap text zoom" in the browser lets you easily zoom in on and read columns of text on the Web, Lazaridis said.
"We spent a lot of time on the details - how the applications interact, how the features interact," Lazaridis said.
Lazaridis and de la Vega didn't specifically call out any of their competitors, but Lazaridis made sure to note that the Torch has strong radio performance on 3G networks.
"We make sure that everything works just right. You know, we build and write our own 3G stack ... we make sure that our battery life works really well, and gets you through the whole day stress free," Lazaridis said.
The BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard is also a major differentiator, Lazaridis said.
"You've got that signature BlackBerry keyboard that's so rewarding to use," Lazaridis said.
The BlackBerry Torch 9800 will be available on August 12 for $199.99 with a new two-year contract. It will work with AT&T's standard $15/mo, 200 MB or $25/mo, 2 GB data plans. RIM executives noted that because BlackBerry phones compress data in transit, you may be able to download more Web pages on the same data plan than you can on competing smartphones.