BlackBerry Torch 9850 (Sprint)

The BlackBerry Torch 9850 for Sprint ($149.99 with contract) promises a little more than it delivers. Its big touch screen, at least compared to the similar BlackBerry Bold 9930, implies terrific media, gaming and Web browsing. But the BlackBerry 7 OS just isn't up to the task, leaving us recommending the 9930 as a better BlackBerry, and Sprint's Android phones as better full-touch-screen smartphones.

Physical Details and Call Quality
The Sprint BlackBerry 9850 looks exactly like U.S. Cellular's model, so excuse me if I crib from that review here. RIM has done a relentlessly classy job with this phone. The phone is black and silver, and fits very easily in the hand at 4.7 by 2.4 by .45 inches and 4.76 oz. The back plate is a beautiful, cool matte metal. On the front, the four action buttons and trackpad are?delightfully?all physical rather than touch buttons, so you never have to worry about knowing when you've clicked them. Overall this feels like one of the most solid, durable phones I've tested in a while.?

Press a button, and the bright-enough 3.7-inch, 800-by-480 screen comes on. The touchscreen is made of a warm, slightly convex plastic which is durable, but feels slicker and greasier than the touchscreens on many other competing smartphones.

With no physical keyboard, the 9850 lives and dies on its touch keyboard. The portrait-style touch keyboard is better than it looks at first glance, because first glance is dire: very tiny, cramped keys that look like a minefield of mistyping. And if you're typing email address or URLs, that's what they are. It's very frustrating.?

But here's the secret: behind the typo-ridden keyboard is a truly great correction engine. If you're typing anything in English (including names in your address book), just blunder ahead; it'll be fixed on the fly and your words will look pristine. I was impressed at what happened when I trusted the machine, just as with the original BlackBerry Pearl.

There's a landscape-style keyboard, too, available if you turn the phone sideways. That one's much easier to type on. It's fine for emails, but in the Web browser, it takes up too much of the screen to be useful.

Still, I was missing the BlackBerry Bold 9930's physical keyboard?or the better touch keyboards on HTC and Apple phones?at the end of my testing cycle.

Voice quality was fine. I heard distortion at maximum volume, and voices were a bit muddy at lower volumes. The speakerphone, on the other hand, was excellent, and quite loud. Transmissions had more garble and background noise than I would prefer.??

Talk time, at 5 hours 50 minutes, was very good (and longer than the U.S. Cellular version because the Sprint phone was getting consistently better signal at our test site), but that understates the 9850's battery life. This being a BlackBerry, it has considerably better standby time than other top smartphones?up to a few days of regular use.

Bluetooth support and voice dialing are excellent here, just like on other recent BlackBerries. The phone pairs easily and routes all sound over Bluetooth, both mono and stereo. This is how Bluetooth should work. The GPS locked in quickly and accurately, as well.

When every Sprint commercial touts 4G, it's tough to recommend a high-end 3G smartphone. RIM would argue, correctly, that Sprint's WiMAX is a battery killer?but users should have the choice to turn on WiMAX when watching videos or browsing the Web. Sprint's 3G is also the slowest nationwide 3G system, according to our 21-city tests?earlier this year.?

That slow 3G is compounded by the Torch's unfortunate habit of dropping to 2G 1XRTT mode randomly during my test period. It's a testament to the great way RIM handles messaging data that with email, IM, Facebook, and Twitter, I didn't notice. But for Web browsing, that's a real drag.

The 9850 connects to Wi-Fi networks as well, of course, and had no problem with our in-house 802.11n networks.

Like other BlackBerries in its family, the Torch 9850 is a global phone. It comes with a Sprint SIM card that offers relatively high roaming rates abroad. If you're adventurous, the SIM card slot is unlocked, so you can replace it with a local card. Remember also that BlackBerries use less data than competing smartphones thanks to server-side compression, making them a great choice for international travelers who don't want to get slapped with high roaming bills.?

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