Stuff Magazine - October 2011

Page 15

HOT STUFF

10/11

Hands-on with the Torch 9860 by Mark Wilson

BlackBerry’s first stab at a touchscreen-only phone, the Storm, was held back by its sluggish OS 5, while the Torch 9800 fixed the problem inelegantly by sticking a keyboard on the back. Its successor, the Torch 9860, feels much more like a modern touch-phone, with a 1.2GHz processor and ‘Liquid Graphics’ (a fancy term for graphical acceleration) creating a slick, responsive experience. The 9860 doesn’t feel as premium as its high-end rivals or Blackberry’s ownBold 9900 (see p79) – its casing is more plasticky, in the vein of Samsung’s Galaxy series. But the 3.7in display is crisp and bright, and the web browsing experience is vastly improved.

1

Power to the people BlackBerrys aren’t renowned for their raw power, but with more pixels to push and more apps to run, the 9860 has been fitted with a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor.

2

Balancing act BlackBerry Balance effectively divides your phone in half, keeping personal content separate and preventing inadvertent sharing of work stuff on social networks.

3

Control freak The 9860 might have lost the QWERTY but it can’t completely ditch the buttons. It still comes with a Bold-style optical trackpad, and navigation and call-answering keys.

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