Blackberry Torch 9800 vs Touch 9860 (Monza)
Blackberry Torch 9800 and Touch 9860 (Monza) are two great touchscreen phones from Research In Motion (RIM). Touch 9860 is the 2011 Spring release. It’s the next generation of Storm, but RIM has given a new name called Touch. Touch 9860 has taken a leap forward from Storm2 9520 in hardware, however not leaving behind the Blackberry Storm flavor in other aspects. It retains the same form factor as Storm2 9520 and runs the latest Blackberry 6.1 OS. For the first time RIM has decided to be in the market competition with super fast processor, high resolution display and high storage capacity. It has a 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor with 768MB RAM, 3.7 inches WVGA (800 x 480 pixels) display and 4GB built-in memory with microSD card slot for expansion. This is what the Blackberry fans were expecting from RIM, a stylish and speedier mobile phone while keeping the excellent BB messaging feature and good call quality. The Blackberry Torch 9800 that was introduced in Q4 2010 is a stylish and elegant device running on Blackberry 6.0 OS and has a slide-out form factor. It is the first Torch version that has incorporated the large touch screen design of the Storm and the physical full QWERTY keyboard of Bold. The physical keyboard slide out vertically and has three on-screen keyboards. It is built with 624MHz processor, 512MB RAM and 8GB internal memory.
Blackberry Touch 9860 (Blackberry Code Name: Monza)
You cannot take Touch 9860 as another phone from RIM, the new BlackBerry Touch 9860 is a very powerful device with 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, 768MB RAM, 4GB built-in memory and powered by the latest BlackBerry 6.1 OS. The new OS 6.1 has some additional features like NFC.
It sports a 3.7″ higher resolution (800 x 480 pixels or 253dpi) WVGA transmissive TFT LCD display, 5MP camera that features auto focus, 4x digital zoom, 720p HD video recording and a LED flash.
For text input it has on-screen SureType, full QWERTY – one for portrait and one for landscape and multi-tap version. In addition to the touch screen it retains the optical trackpad for navigation, which is a beauty of the Blackberry phones. The standard dedicated keys are located in the same places like earlier and it has added some dedicated media keys; Send, Power, Escape, Lock, customizable Camera key, Volume up/down (Fwd/Rwd for media, Zoom for camera) and Mute key (Play/Pause for media).
The user interface is simple with intutive icons and menus.For connectivity it has Bluetooth v2.1 that supports Stereo A2DP 1.2/AVRCP 1.3 and media file transfer, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n that can be used to access Blackberry Enterprise Server, Blackberry Internet Server and for direct IP web browsing and USB 2.0 High Speed for charging and data synchronization.For location service it has A-GPS with preloaded Blackberry Maps.
Touch 9860 also has the standard sensors like accelerometer, magnetometer (e-compass) and proximity sensor.
Touch 9860 is compatible with quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and Tri-band UMTS/HSUPA(5.76Mbps)/HSDPA(14.4Mbps) networks.For HSDPA there is a limitation created by the chipset which limit the maximum throuput to 13.4Mbps. However this will not affect the users as most of the carriers do not deliver up to that speed.
The CDMA version of the Blackberry Touch 9860 is Touch 9850 with a code name of Monaco.
Blackberry Torch 9800
This is the first handset from Torch with a touchscreen and slideout keyboard and run Blackberry OS 6.0. BB 6.0 introduces a universal search feature. This allows one application on the phone to search for any folder or file or any document present in the phone or over the internet.
Torch 9800 has 3.2″ capacitive HVGA display with a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels and more memory, 8GB internal memory, expandable with microSD card up to 32GB and a decent 5.0 MP camera.It is powered by 624MHz processor with 512MB RAM.The Built in Wi-Fi supports 802.11b/g/n, which enables three times faster connectivity. (802.11b/g – 54 Mbps; 802.11n – 150 Mbps). It also takes much shorter time to power on.
Outside this technicality, the first impression of the phone is also very pleasing with its wet look and nice finish and it has also integrated some featured applications such as PrimeTime2Go and Kobo eReaders.