I’m at an event organised by BlackBerry-maker RIM at The Hospital Club in London where we are being treated to a live stream of a press conference from the US. The event in the US is being fronted by Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of mobility and consumer markets at US operator AT&T who has so far told us that the companies are set to announce what he describes as: “The best BlackBerry ever”.
The event is turning into a bit of a PR nightmare for the UK’s hosts, however, as de la Vega’s voice is fading in and out of audibility. Now RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is up and he has just about managed to reveal the name of the new handset as the BlackBerry Torch (official model number: 9800), a “touch-QWERTY slider”, incorporating, as the name suggests, both a touchscreen and sliding QWERTY keypad. Its the first BlackBerry phone to use the BlackBerry 6 OS.
The final speaker in the US is now offering more details about the user interface, but Rob Warren, VP, product management, EMEA for RIM has stepped into the breach in the UK, killing the audio feed and walking us through the product live in the room instead. He’s talking about the new user interface and folder structure in the new OS, BlackBerry 6, designed to make BlackBerrys easier to use, and about the WebKit browser, which supports full HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. Media apps have been grouped together, as have social networking apps, enabling users to arrange the homescreen to suit their own preferences.
There are some neat enhancements to the browsing experience. When a user zooms in on a webpage, it will give them the page in the font size they have set as their preference in the default settings. Users can also invoke multiples tabs with one click. Subscription to news feeds will also push out updates to the device at intervals specified by the user, giving them the option to click on the summary to see the full story. With the option of using either the touchscreen or keypad and trackball, Warren says that users will choose to interact with the device in the way that best suits them for different applications and functions. 
The screen is a high-resolution capacitive 3.2-iinch touchscreen. Other features include HSDPA support (3.6 Mbps); built-in GPS and wi-fi; 5 megapixel camera with flash, autofocus, digital zoom and face recognition; 512 MB Flash, 4 GB onboard memory, and microSDHC memory card slot (up to 32 GB).
The phone is launching today with AT&T in the US at $199 with various contract options, with announcements for EMEA due “in the coming weeks” according to Warren. The BlackBerry 6 OS will also be available on the BlackBerry 9700 and 9105, as well as on subsequent new handsets.
Who knows how successful the Torch will be in wresting users away from the iPhone and Android, but it’s probably safe to say it will be a while before RIM holds its next event at this particular venue.
