RIM Blackberry Torch 9800 review

There are five homescreens on the BlackBerry Torch: All, favourites, media, downloads and frequent. It helps you find your stuff quickly. You can change which icons appear on each homescreen. We found the downloads screen especially useful, since files can sometimes easily get lost in the depths of your smartphone. Having them all in one place makes it simple to open, view and edit any freshly downloaded file, straight from your homescreen.

Below the screen is an optical touchpad, just like on the BlackBerry 9700. Like its predecessors, it's very responsive. Nothing more than a light swipe is required to activate it. Although slightly redundant on the Torch with its responsive touchscreen, it's still handy both for one-handed use and for veteran BlackBerry users familiar with older models.

Alongside the usual call answer and end keys is the BlackBerry menu key that acts as the contextual menu button across applications. These are all physical buttons rather than touch-sensitive controls.

The true highlight of the Torch is the new BlackBerry OS 6. The entire user interface has been redesigned. From the homescreen, simply tap the top toolbar to instantly view your connections including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and network status. From here, you can turn them all on or off as well as add new connections too.