Innovation

RIM announces BlackBerry Torch 9800 for AT&T with QWERTY and touchscreen

RIM just announced their latest device that combines the best of their QWERTY keyboard history with a capacitive touchscreen experience in the Torch 9800. AT&T customers can pick one up for $200 next week.

Written by Matthew Miller, Contributing Writer on Aug. 3, 2010

I don't write about RIM products here as much as I probably should, primarily because I don't own one since my SIM has to be provisioned for it. However, with today's announcement of the RIM BlackBerry Torch 9800 I may have found a BlackBerry device for me to purchase when it comes to T-Mobile. Starting next week, 12 August, lucky AT&T customers will be able to purchase the new Torch 9800 for $199.99 with 2-year service plan. The BB Torch 9800 brings the best of the QWERTY world and touch world together in one device that also runs the latest BlackBerry 6 operating system. I will try to get a review unit soon so I can post my experiences with it here for you all to read about.

The key specifications of the Torch 9800 include:

Slide down QWERTY keyboard (reminds me of my old HTC MDA II Pocket PC Phone device)
3.2 inch 360x480 capacitive touch display
RIM BlackBerry 6 operating system
5 megapixel camera with flash
512MB Flash memory, 4GB integrated memory, and microSD card slot
802.11 b/g/n WiFi
Bluetooth and GPS

The new BB 6 OS includes a new WebKit-based browser, universal search, context-sensitive pop-up menus, and much more. I imagine we will see this roll out soon on other carriers and I may just be adding a BlackBerry device to my collection when T-Mobile gets one.