CrackBerry.com's Review of the BlackBerry Torch 9800 on AT&T - the first BlackBerry with a touchscreen, slide keyboard, and BlackBerry 6!

RIM's all new BlackBerry Torch 9800 for AT&T capitalizes on BlackBerry's historical strength by including awesome keyboard and killer email while featuring a plethora of new features including a proper touchscreen, upgraded camera and the highly anticipated BlackBerry 6 operating system. It will be available August 12th for $199.99 after contract.

You thought sliders were played out? Well think again. Research In Motion may not have invented the slider, but by working hand in hand with AT&T on its development since the project took root in late 2008, they have come very close to perfecting it. With some major upgrades and many subtle refinements throughout the user interface and under the hood, BB6 plays catch up in the smartphone wars. With the Torch, it now delivers to BlackBerry users a modern feeling experience that takes messaging and social media to a new level while placing much more emphasis on traditional media (photos, music, video, podcasts, etc.). The best news of all is the new WebKit rendering engine, which is the same web browser technology behind the iPhone, Android, webOS, and Nokia phones. You can finally enjoy browsing webpages on a BlackBerry.

There's a lot to cover in this review, so let's get to it!

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Supplemental to our full out BlackBerry Torch 9800 Review, we have our full dump of BlackBerry Torch 9800 images and photos. In addition to seeing the BlackBerry Torch 9800 in all it's glory, below you'll also find comparison photos between the BlackBerry Torch 9800 and the BlackBerry Bold 9700, Apple iPhone 4, HTC Sprint EVO 4G, Palm Pre and Samsung Captivate. With its vertical sliding form factor, a first for a BlackBerry Smartphone, the Torch made a great model for the CrackBerry cameras. Check out all the photos and images below and be sure to read our BlackBerry Torch 9800 Review and BlackBerry 6 Review to learn all about the latest BlackBerry offerings.

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Technical Specs and Key Features for the BlackBerry Torch 9800

Official word of the highly-anticipated BlackBerry Torch 9800 is finally here! Below you can find the tech specs and key features list for the new BlackBerry Torch 9800 Smartphone. The Torch 9800 introduces  a lot of new stuff for a BlackBerry - a new form factor, new product family name, a new camera and it debuts the BlackBerry 6 operating system. Take a look and keep it locked to CrackBerry.com for our full BlackBerry Torch Review (hopefully coming soon!).

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The BlackBerry Slider/Torch 9800 has been pictured plenty of times now, but today it finally let it all out and showed off once again. The latest round of photos snag pretty much every imaginable angle of the device leaving nothing to the imagination. From here on out there really isn't anything on it we haven't seen, although we still don't know for sure just what it will be called or even when it will be released. It's kickin' it on AT&T and running BlackBerry 6, and even though we got our fill on video already, it's never a bad thing to see some more. Plenty of photos over at Engadget to feed your appetite. 

Source: Engadget

Earlier today we got some nice high quality pictures of the BlackBerry 9800 slider. Now, we get what was got to be the best video walkthrough of BlackBerry 6 to date. Sure, it's in Chinese considering it came from the folks over at BerryTimes but the language of BlackBerry is universal. Sit back and watch a full 16 minutes of BlackBerry 6 in action. Now, if you'll excuse I need to go wipe the drool off my keyboard. Video is after the jump folks, enjoy.

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We've seen it in pics, we've seen it in video and now it's time for another round of up close and personal pics with the BlackBerry Bold 9800. Love it or hate it, this is a device that many folks are now starting to love more and more as newer pics and videos show up on the scene. While I'm still not overly fond of the device myself, that on screen keyboard (if it works as I'm thinking it does) should be quite functional. One more pic of the back of the device is after the jump, showing the slider in the up position so you can just see the camera placement. You can view the whole lot of pictures over at TheBerryFix by hitting the source link.

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Whoa. Early morning treat for all you BlackBerry Bold 9800 slider fans out there. Brought to us by the folks over at The Cellular Guru, we now have some nice clear shots of what is surely one of the first BlackBerry devices to have BlackBerry 6 on it when released. Running on the slider, as you can see from the above shot is the long awaited Webkit browser Research In Motion has been working on. And judging by the picture, doing quite well as it just scored a 100/100 on the Acid3 test. As Kevin had mentioned before, it is indeed a touchscreen that is not powered by Surepress technology so we're all still waiting to see how that works out. Click on over after the jump for a few more pics of what to expect.

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Left two photos: BlackBerry 9800 slider; right: BlackBerry 9670. All on BlackBerry 6

Yes, we know the photos are not the highest resolution, but they're legit and they're showing off unannounced, unreleased BlackBerry Smartphones running a not-yet available operating system, which makes them cool.

On the two left photos, you have the upcoming BlackBerry 9800 "slider" showing off BlackBerry 6. In GSM dressings, we're thinking this is the device RIM's Founder and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis was referring to when he said we'll see BlackBerry 6 launch next quarter. We don't know a ton about the device yet specs-wise or name wise for that matter, but the prevailing notion from what we have gathered so far is that it will hit AT&T first. Though a name is just a name, I'm curious to see what RIM ends up calling this one, as it'll be the first BlackBerry Smartphone to combine a touchscreen with a physical keyboard. To date, RIM's touchscreen BlackBerry devices have fallen into the Storm family of brand, but as I learned last week from RIM's VP of Product Marketing, within the US market the Storm name (to date anyways) has been exclusively licensed by Verizon. So if it's hitting AT&T, maybe we'll see it launch as a Bold Slider or Bold 9800 - unless RIM wants to introduce yet another brand family which seems a bit counter-intuitive seeing as they just gave the axe to the Tour brand.

And on the right we have the BlackBerry 9670, showing off a clamshell form factor containing a full qwerty keyboard. Yup, it's kind of hideous, but it's rocking BlackBerry 6 and apparently a 5.0 megapixel camera, which is hottt! This one is CDMA, and we've been hearing it's a device Verizon asked RIM to build - so if you're not liking the look of this one I wouldn't toss all the blame in one spot just yet. I'm sure we'll learn more about this one in the weeks and months ahead.

Source: BBLeaks (9800) ; CellGuru (9670) 

Some BlackBerry Slider excitement is going around the net this morning based on a quote given by the CEO of  Korean-based parts supplier used by Research in Motion. According to the translation, the CEO of Woojeon & Handan said:

"The Canadian company RIM famous for BlackBerry smartphones is releasing a new model next month. Known as the "T," The new model is an ambitious product aimed at competing against iPhone's storm of success. Rim will present it ("T") as its flagship model to compete in global markets such as the U.S. and Europe." 

We've said in the blogs and podcasts lots of times now that the BlackBerry originally codenamed "talledaga" or "mr. t" for short is RIM's vertical slider device, so there's no doubt in our minds here that the slider is the device here. As for getting released next month, well.... I'd love to believe it, but think that's a bit optimistic.  Though I guess it always depends on the definititions used in the smartphone game with words like released / announced / launched, etc., but I have my doubts you'll be able to walk into a store and buy a BlackBerry slider by the end of April. 

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BlackBerry9999 and 9650x are both new to our analytics this week...

Gotta love BlackBerry Slider talk.... and there's so much left to be known about the device. The Boy Genius dropped a "whisper" over the weekend with a couple new BlackBerry slider tidbits gained from one of his "solid connects".... here's what he had to say:

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In an effort to give us all a better feel for the BlackBerry slider (aka 9700a as it has shown up as... at least for now anyways as that could easily and should change), the folks over at BBLeaks have got some more pics for us to gaze over. These pics give us a look at the back end of the device as well as give us a size idea by being compared to a BlackBerry Curve 8900. As with all prerelease devices, what we're looking at here is pre branded hardware. And while it may likely be close to "final form" the released models will have branding and such from carriers on them and will certainly look more polished. Past prerelease devices such as the Bold 9000 first showed up wearing a plastic battery door. A far stretch from the leather backing it arrived with at release. Some of you may remember the Bold 9700 was first seen with a trackball, so while pics give us a general idea, everything should be taken with a grain of salt until newer, branded hardware is spotted.

Still lots left to learn about this device as the days go by, hopefully we'll get to see a better look as many, many questions remain unanswered here. What about the camera? Is it 5MP and making use of the liquid lense we heard? Or is it still running the old 3.2MP that has been standard. What about the screen? Is it touchscreen? OS it's running, if any? Here’s to hoping someone out there can actually get an up close and personal look with one that actually powers on at some point. Now, with these new pictures showing up has it changed your thoughts on the device? One more picture after the break of the side by side with an 8900.

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What's this? A CrackBerry Podcast? But it hasn't been two weeks since our last one??? Dang straight! Since it's CrackBerry Birthday Week and we've had lots of excitement over the past few days with all of the BlackBerry slider stuff in the blogs, we decided to jump on the ole CrackBerry Radio and get a bonus Special Edition episode recorded. We talk the BlackBerry siider to death in this one... by the end we're exhausted. So if you're into the slider, take a listen. Enjoy the show, and we'll see you again next week. 

WooHOO!! More photos of the BlackBerry Slider have emerged. These new photos posted by BBLeaks are much clearer now than the original ones that popped up in the CrackBerry forums last night. Take a look. The unit has a dead battery and won't power up so there's not too much to be told about the experience just yet. They note that the battery is a new design, FX-1, and apparently is only 1050mAh, which is quite small for a BlackBerry.

I'm definitely itching to see more specs on this one. Be sure to checkout the BlackBerry Slider Rumor Roundup we put together earlier for our latest grasp of what this device is all about. More photos below and you can jump over to bbleaks for higher res images. 

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When it comes to the CrackBerry Forums we have a rule - once photos of a new pre-release device emerge that's when it gets its own dedicated forum. That said, we have officially opened the BlackBerry slider forum. To go along with the forum opening, we also have the original unwatermarked images that surfaced last night. Funny thing. It turns out they were originally posted on this CrackBerry forum thread by a member before they were watermarked and posted by another site. At least we know where they got their photos from and they say more are on the way soon so I still look forward to that. Another unwatermarked photo is below. Earlier today we cleared up some of the rumors around the BlackBerry slider, but there's still a ton to talk about, so enjoy the new BlackBerry Slider forum and put it to good use!! 

• Talk about the new slider in the BlackBerry Slider Forum >>

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* Update - If you're looking for a little more proof that the 9700a is the Slider and that OS 6.0 exists, be sure to check out this 9700a UAProf document we found hosted on the BlackBerry.net website. It shows that the resolution is 360x480 (not 480x360 as in the 9700 -- see 9700 UAProf --... thus a slider portrait orientation) and shows that 6.0 is present. It also confirms WiFi b / g and n which we heard about last week from BGR. *

Call me a CrackBerry Addict but last night's leaked photos of a BlackBerry Slider device had me too excited to sleep. Big leaks like this historically get followed by a flood of info into the good 'ole CrackBerry tipline, so between what we knew in the past, what has surfaced recently (BGR posted some details last week) and what's come in that we trust since the photos went live, I figured I'd walk through some Rumor Q&A to set the record straight to the best of our knowledge at this time. Let's get it on!

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