BlackBerry Torch 9800 review: A slider that combined a touchscreen with the classic BlackBerry keyboard.
BlackBerry's touchscreen-keyboard hybrid.
The Torch 9800 tried to bridge two worlds — a capacitive touchscreen sliding over a classic BlackBerry keyboard, with the new OS 6. It was a reasonable device that arrived too late and too underpowered to halt the iPhone and Android tide.
01Display
50/10050/100 is one of the weaker display results among flagship phones of 2010 — 12 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
02Camera
50/10050/100 trails the 54-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2010.
03Performance
44/10044/100 trails the 49-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2010.
04Battery
56/10056/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2010.
05Build
66/100At 66/100 this is one of the strongest build showings among flagship phones of 2010 — 8 points above the cohort average.
06Value
54/100At 54/100 this is one of the strongest value showings among flagship phones of 2010 — 9 points above the cohort average.
- Touchscreen plus a physical slide-out keyboard.
- New BlackBerry OS 6 with WebKit browser.
- BBM and push email.
- microSD + jack.
- 624 MHz CPU felt sluggish.
- Low-res screen vs iPhone 4.
- OS 6 came too late.
- Heavy 161 g.
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 50-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .