HTC now has the upper hand in a legal battle with German patent firm IPCom. IPCom won a lawsuit in 2009 related to UMTS technology under which it believed it had the right to ban German retailers from selling HTC smartphones. HTC, however, argued that IPCom’s case was no longer valid and ignored the injunction entirely. As a result, IPCom recently tried to take the law into its own hands by suing more than 100 retailers that continued to sell HTC phones. ”Since this deadline has passed without any of the retailers complying, IPCom has sued them for infringement of patent #100A themselves,” IPCom said, noting that it issued cease and desist letters to each retailer on December 6th asking them to stop selling HTC phones by December 20th. According to Taiwan Economic News, the German Dusseldorf court recently granted HTC an injunction that forces IPCom to stop harassing HTC’s retailers with lawsuits. The injunction should be a relief for HTC, which could have faced fines of up to €250,000 for each handset sold under the terms of the original injunction.

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Deutsche Telekom recently detailed the breakup terms AT&T agreed to following the deterioration of its planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA. Deutsche Telekom will receive $3 billion in cash and T-Mobile USA will benefit from fresh AWS spectrum as well as a new 7-year 3G roaming deal with AT&T. “As part of the break-up fee, T-Mobile USA will receive a large package of AWS mobile spectrum in 128 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs), including 12 of the top 20 markets (Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Baltimore and Seattle),” Deutsche Telekom said in a statement. “The UMTS roaming agreement for the U.S. in T-Mobile USA’s favor has a term of over seven years and will allow the company to improve its footprint significantly among the U.S. population and offer its customers better broadband coverage for mobile communications services in the future.” The company also said that T-Mobile USA’s 3G network will grow from blanketing 230 million potential customers to covering 280 million people. Deutsche Telekom’s full press release follows below.

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom terminate agreement on the sale of T-Mobile USA

Dec 19, 2011

• Deutsche Telekom receives record high break-up fee
• AT&T will pay Deutsche Telekom USD 3 billion in cash
• T-Mobile USA will receive a large package of Advanced Wireless Solutions (AWS) spectrum and long-term national UMTS roaming agreement
• Deutsche Telekom’s guidance and planned dividend policy remain unchanged

U.S. telecommunications company AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom have terminated the agreement on the sale of T-Mobile USA to AT&T. As a result, AT&T will pay Deutsche Telekom the break-up fee agreed in the contract signed by both companies dated March 20, 2011. This is one of the highest payments ever agreed between two companies for the termination of a purchase agreement. It includes a cash payment of USD 3 billion to Deutsche Telekom, which is expected to be made by the end of this year. In addition, it contains a large package of mobile communications spectrum and a long-term agreement on UMTS roaming within the U.S. for T-Mobile USA.

Both companies are in agreement that the broad opposition by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and the U.S. telecommunications regulator (FCC) is making it increasingly unlikely that the transaction will close. Both companies are of the opinion that important arguments in support of the transaction have been ignored, such as the significant improvement in high-speed mobile network coverage for the U.S. market, as well as the positive employment effects. In addition there was no indication that either authority would move away from it’s non-supportive stance in return for concessions from the parties in terms of the scope and structure of the transaction.

As part of the break-up fee, T-Mobile USA will receive a large package of AWS mobile spectrum in 128 Cellular Market Areas (CMAs), including 12 of the top 20 markets (Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, Baltimore and Seattle).

The UMTS roaming agreement for the U.S. in T-Mobile USA’s favor has a term of over seven years and will allow the company to improve its footprint significantly among the U.S. population and offer its customers better broadband coverage for mobile communications services in the future. Population coverage will increase from 230 million potential customers at present to 280 million. As a result of the agreement with AT&T, coverage will be extended to many regions of the U.S. in which T-Mobile USA previously had neither its own high-speed mobile communications network nor the associated roaming agreements.

The termination of the agreement means Deutsche Telekom will go back to reporting T-Mobile USA as continuing operations in future. Deutsche Telekom’s guidance for the 2011 financial year remains unchanged as a result of this development, with adjusted EBITDA of around EUR 19.1 billion expected. At EUR 6.5 billion, free cash flow is forecasted to remain at the prior-year level or increase slightly. The guidance includes the T-Mobile USA contribution based on the average exchange rate in 2010 of USD 1.33 per euro. The free cash flow forecast does not include the settlement payment of EUR 0.4 billion relating to PTC in Poland or the cash payment of USD 3 billion from the break-up fee to be paid by AT&T.

Deutsche Telekom’s dividend policy also remains unchanged. The annual dividend payments are subject to the necessary board resolutions and other legal requirements.

Even following the termination of the agreement with AT&T, Deutsche Telekom exepects to remain within the communicated ranges for certain financial performance indicators used to assess the financial performance of the company. These are as follows: The ratio of net debt to adjusted EBITDA of the Group is to be between 2 and 2.5, the equity ratio is to be between 25 percent and 35 percent, gearing (ratio of net debt to shareholders’ equity) between 0.8 and 1.2, and liquidity reserves is to cover maturities of at least the next 24 months.

The cash component of the break-up fee directly reduces Deutsche Telekom’s net debt, thereby by strengthening the financial performance indicators affecting the company’s rating.

Deutsche Telekom would like to express its gratitude to AT&T and to Randall Stephenson and his team for the positive cooperation over the past few months. Our working relationship was characterized by fairness and respect at all times.

Samsung on Monday confirmed that it recently filed a new complaint against Apple in France, alleging that the Cupertino-based company’s iPad and iPhone devices infringe on three Samsung-owned patents. Unlike the case that recently saw a German judge ban sales of Samsung’s GALAXY Tab 10.1 tablet by the company’s local arm, Samsung’s complaint in France covers patents rather than the physical design of the devices in question. The suit targets Apple’s iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G as well as the iPad and iPad 2, and the patents in question cover the UMTS communication standard according to AFP. The complaint was first filed in July and a preliminary hearing will take place in December.

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We unveiled nearly all of RIM’s 2011 lineup over the past day or so, and we wanted to highlight the devices as well as give you a bit more background and personal thoughts on them — and of course, more photos. For starters, though, let’s talk about RIM’s NFC implementation and its real world use cases… we have been told RIM is planning to use NFC for pairing and streaming control with accessories, in addition to peer-to-peer information exchange. What does that mean? Well, you’d hold up one BlackBerry to another BlackBerry to add that person on BlackBerry Messenger, transfer your vCard information, or even share files. Future NFC uses headed to BlackBerry devices, we’re told, include things as crazy as building access control (no more key cards!), ticketing, and of course, payments. Hit the break for the rest of our break down!

BlackBerry Bold (Dakota)

The BlackBerry Dakota is the creme de la creme of the 2011 BlackBerry family, and it will carry the Bold name. RIM has taken various shots at this form factor and the Dakota will be the first one to see the light of day. We’re glad the company took the time to get it right, because earlier prototypes we’ve seen definitely fell short. The Torch is a great phone for some, but those of us who live and die by the perfect QWERTY keyboard found on RIM’s Bold line had trouble dealing with the thin plastic keys and minimal tactile response on the Torch’s board.

Beyond the heaven-sent full QWERTY / touchscreen combo, the Dakota will feature specs that are definitely a solid bump over today’s Bold devices. By 2011 standards they’re not going to blow anyone away, but higher display resolution, RAM upgrade, NFC, mobile hotspot capability and thin form factor are sure to please the eager BlackBerry-toting masses. Toss HD video recording and OS 6.1 into the mix, and we’re looking at the likely king of Waterloo in 2011.

BlackBerry Curve (Apollo)

The BlackBerry Curve sits lower than the Bold on RIM’s device lineup totem pole, but with the newest Curve ready to debut later this year, people will be in for a treat. With a decent screen, HSPA, a 5-megapixel camera, and an 800MHz CPU, the brand new BlackBerry Curve definitely won’t be a slouch. The styling flows very well on the Curve pictured above with smooth angles and… curves. The phone also appears sleek and perfectly proportioned. RIM’s Curve line is by far its biggest, and we think this update will definitely help keep RIM’s enterprise sales moving in the right direction.

BlackBerry Torch 2

RIM called the first Torch its best BlackBerry ever, though many would take issue with that statement. The Torch did nothing for me, personally. In fact, all it really did was make using a BlackBerry device more clunky and painful. Part of this is the hardware’s vertical slide out design, but part of it was due to the slow processor and weak internals. But if all goes according to plan, one of the Torch’s two big strikes will soon be taken care of. The BlackBerry Torch 2 should scream with its 1.2GHz CPU, VGA-resolution screen and large built-in storage. Again, these specs aren’t going to make anyone’s head spin in Q3 2011, but they’ll definitely give the Torch the shot of adrenaline it so desperately needs.

BlackBerry Storm 3 (Monaco)

We have not confirmed that the BlackBerry Monaco will launch with the “Storm 3″ moniker, though if it did, it would be practically nothing like the first device in the series. The first BlackBerry Storm, internally referred to as an “Apple Killer” and arguably one of the worst handsets ever to created by Research In Motion (remember how we reported it would be terrible before release?), shares nothing with the upcoming BlackBerry Storm 3 — no SurePress screen, no clunky hardware, no slow processor. This new full touchscreen device will be powered by a 1.2GHz CPU and feature the highest resolution display to ever ship on a BlackBerry — 800 x 480 pixels. We’ll have to see how it plays out in the marketplace, though, because by the time it is released in Q3, there will be much, much more advanced handsets with much more robust operating systems.

We hope you BlackBerry-lovers out there are excited with the information we have shared over the past two days. RIM is definitely moving towards better-spec’d devices — we’ll just have to see if it’s going to be soon enough, and if it’s going to be enough to compete with the iPhone and Android juggernauts.

Research In Motion’s “best BlackBerry ever” — the BlackBerry Torch — definitely wasn’t the most competitive device to hit the smartphone market place. But it looks like RIM is trying to change all that with a new take on its QWERTY, horizontal-slider: the BlackBerry Torch 2. BGR has exclusively obtained a photo of the BlackBerry Torch 2 along with the device’s full specifications. Was the Torch’s 600MHz CPU a bit too underpowered for you? You’re in luck, as we can now confirm that the BlackBerry Torch 2 will feature a 1.2GHz CPU with hardware acceleration. Full specifications after the break!

• 1.2GHz processor
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band HSPA 14.4Mbps
• 3.2-inch VGA 640 x 480 capacitive display
• 8GB built-in memory
• 512MB RAM
• Bluetooth 2.1
• GPS
• NFC
• 5-megapixel camera with flash
• Magnetometer
• Accelerometer
• Proximity sensor
• 1300 mAh battery
• BlackBerry OS 6.1
• OpenGL ES
• 14.6mm thin

Yes, the BlackBerry Torch 2 looks very similar to the original Torch, and we’re told it’s basically the same on the exterior except for a matte silver finish. Internally, however, you can see that there have been quite a few changes made. The BlackBerry Torch 2 is tracking for a late Q3 release on AT&T.

That BlackBerry 8520 feeling a bit outdated? Well, we might have just what you’ve been waiting for — the next generation BlackBerry Curve. Codenamed “Apollo,” the new BlackBerry Curve finally brings up the lower-mid end of the BlackBerry lineup with very reasonable (and decent) specs for what will be an aggressively priced handset line. A 480 x 360 screen joins a 5-megapixel camera, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and a tri-band HSPA 7.2Mbps radio, and even NFC capability. Hit the break for the full run down, alright?

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Tri-band UMTS/HSPA 7.2Mbps
• Bluetooth 2.1
• Wi-Fi b/g/n
• GPS
• NFC
• 512MB of eMMC, 512MB of RAM
• 5-megapixel camera with flash
• HVGA 480 x 360 display
• 1050 mAh battery
• Tavor MG-1 800MHz CPU
• BlackBerry OS 6.1
• 11mm thin

Another round from DigiTimes:

Apple is expected to release three versions of iPad 2, supporting either or a combination of Wi-Fi, UMTS and CDMA, for 2011 with mass production to start as early as the later half of January.

If DigiTimes’ sources are correct, this would mean there will not be a single iPad that runs on UMTS or CDMA networks, rather two different models, countering what most people believed based on prior rumors and speculation. The report claims that Apple will be set to ship over half a million iPad two units next month while they start mass production on them. That information signals in our opinion a late February / early March release. In addition to the rumored support of CDMA, it also appears Apple isn’t giving up on its screen technology as it is rumored to be working on better anti-smudge and anti-glare options for iPad displays. Let’s recap the most solid iPad 2 rumors so far:

• Slightly thinner bezel
• Slightly thinner body, tapered edges, flat back
• Front and rear cameras
• Better anti-smudge and anti-glare screen
• Possibly a dual core 1GHz CPU
• 512MB of RAM
• Redesigned rear speaker, volume buttons
• Verizon CDMA unit

Anyone getting excited out there?

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Rumors of a Verizon Wireless iPhone have swirled since even before the first iPhone was actually announced — you might remember the rumor that both Verizon and AT&T (then Cingular) would sell the device. Fast forward to the last couple of months, and countless articles have appeared from mainstream media publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times in addition to countless other publications and blogs reporting on Verizon-related iPhone news. The consensus is that AT&T will lose its exclusivity in the United States after December 31st of this year, and that Verizon Wireless will begin selling the iPhone starting in the first quarter of next year. Let’s assume that Verizon Wireless will get the iPhone in that timeframe for the purpose of this article.

How will the phone be introduced? A typical Steve Jobs last-minute intimate Apple Town Hall gathering? A press release? Well, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg kicks off CES 2011 with a keynote presentation. The keynote will undoubtedly focus heavily on Verizon’s newly-launched 4G (that’s not really 4G). That in itself complicates the possibility of an iPhone announcement at CES. Could Ivan Seidenberg — while describing how LTE is the future of Verizon’s wireless network in this country; how it’s fast enough to replace your home broadband; how it enables more usage scenarios than traditional 3G networks — also announce a CDMA iPhone? Or better yet, could he invite Steve Jobs out to announce a Verizon iPhone? If the Verizon iPhone will support LTE, we’d say this was a slam dunk. However, only very new (and very unreliable) rumors have pointed to any sort of LTE compatibility in a Verizon iPhone. Is it possible, yes. Likely? Probably not (in our opinion).

That leaves option two: an announcement from Apple later in January. This would enable Steve Jobs to make the big announcement himself, under his own terms, while not countering Verizon’s huge LTE push. If a Verizon iPhone ends up being CDMA-compatible and not LTE-compatible out of the gate, expect Steve Jobs to detail how much Apple is interested in LTE, though the technology isn’t quite there yet and battery life would suffer, coverage isn’t great, and so on. It’s also then possible for Apple to introduce a new global iPhone in June or July during its WWDC conference — think GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA/LTE + CDMA all in one chipset… but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Those are our two scenarios: a CES introduction from Verizon Wireless if the handset is LTE-compatible, or an Apple introduction sometime in January if the handset is a CDMA device. There isn’t any information that says either of our predicted scenarios will happen, but it would be a show stopper to be announced at CES. A phone that’s been available for almost six months globally, that will become available on another carrier in the U.S., could overpower every single mobile phone announcement at the entire Consumer Electronics Show. Just the way Steve Jobs likes it.

In the week or so that I have been testing the AT&T MiFi 2372 by Novatel Wireless, it has already saved no less than three lives.

First, it saved my cable guy’s life. You see, Time Warner Cable provides the worst home Internet service I have ever experienced. I can’t even think of a close second. If providing terrible home Internet service was a sport, Time Warner Cable would be on its tenth consecutive undefeated season. Forget the fact that my upload speed is capped at 60Kbps and I’m lucky if I can get half that — it has been months since I’ve gone through a full day without at least one service interruption. Months. Unfortunately, Time Warner Cable has an exclusive contract with my building so I have no choice but to endure its abysmal service. Last week, as a Time Warner Cable technician entered my home for the sixth time in two months, I realized that this certainly would have spelled serious trouble had it not been for my trusty new back up device.

Before the MiFi 2372 arrived on my doorstep from Novatel, Sprint’s Overdrive had been my savior — thus bringing me to the second life AT&T’s MiFi saved. After applying the most recent firmware update on my Overdrive, battery life dropped from roughly 2.5 hours to roughly 2.5 minutes. That might seem like an exaggeration, but I assure you it’s not. From a full charge, my Overdrive now displays a low battery warning in under three minutes. It then powers down and becomes unusable until I pull the battery and replace it again, which then affords me another 2.5 minutes of WiMAX connectivity before the device powers itself down. Since applying the aforementioned firmware update, the only purpose my Overdrive can adequately serve is that of a blunt object — one I surely would have used to bludgeon a poor unsuspecting Sprint store employee had the arrival of the MiFi 2372 not reduced my boiling blood to a simmer.

Finally, of course, the third life this mobile hotspot saved is my own. I’m certainly not bright enough to evade capture and I assure you… I wouldn’t last more than a few minutes in prison.

All joking aside, the combination of Novatel Wireless’ MiFi 2372 and AT&T’s terrific mobile broadband service in my area have made for a great experience. I routinely get around 5Mbps down and over 1Mbps up, which are identical to the speeds I saw over WiMAX back when my Overdrive was more than a shiny black paperweight.

For those unaware, the function of a “MiFi” device is simple: it connects to a cellular data network and then allows other devices to share this data connection over Wi-Fi. The MiFi 2372 supports up to five simultaneous connections, and anything with a Wi-Fi radio is compatible. It also features a microSD card slot with support for up to 16GB of storage, which makes sharing files between connected devices a breeze.

Novatel’s MiFi 2372 is capable of download speeds up to 7.2Mbps and upload speeds up to 5.76Mbps. While I haven’t gotten close to reaching the cap on the upload side, download speeds have approached 6Mbps in and around New York City. Assuming AT&T will continue to expand its HSPA+ service in the coming months, it would have been nice if Novatel prepared for 14.4Mbps in the MiFi 2372. Current speeds are more than adequate when only one device is connected, but I did experience some hiccups with multiple simultaneous connections — especially if any of the connected devices were streaming video.

Battery life on the MiFi 2372 is outstanding. Surprisingly so, in fact. Novatel’s website claims that the device will last up to 4 hours on a single charge when one Wi-Fi device is connected. Believe it or not, that figure aligns with my experiences quite well. It should be noted that AT&T’s service is exceptional in my area, and battery life will certainly be less impressive in fringe coverage areas.

The MiFi 2372 is the first device to feature Novatel’s new widget support. Because the device doesn’t have an on-device display like Sprint’s Overdrive, the widget panel is quite useful. It is accessible on the MiFi dashboard (just point your browser to http://att.mifi) and provides a good deal of information. Examples include remaining battery charge, signal strength and number of connected devices. You can also log into your AT&T account and see widgets that will display account information and messages. Finally, there are location-specific widgets that become active when you enable the MiFi 2372′s internal GPS. Accessible information includes weather forecasts and Google Maps integration for fast and easy local searches.

As AT&T’s first mobile hotspot, the Novatel MiFi 2372 sets the bar at a good height. Not too high, mind you, but just high enough. The battery life is impressive, the widgets are interesting and useful, and data speeds are adequate. AT&T’s network has taken a lot of heat recently, but I find AT&T to be just like every other cellular carrier in the world — it’s good if you’re well-covered and bad if you’re not. I happen to live and work in an area that is thoroughly blanketed with AT&T’s speedy 3G service, and as long as I’m not using an iPhone I rarely have any issues. If you can make the same claim about the majority of areas in which you plan to use a mobile hotspot, the MiFi 2372 is ideal.

The Novatel MiFi 2372 mobile hotspot is available immediately from AT&T for $299.99 off-contract or $49.99 with a new 2-year agreement. I recommend paying the extra cash up front so you can temporarily stop paying for the service if you don’t plan to use the device for a while. Monthly service costs $35 for 200MB of data or $60 for 5GB of data, and overages cost $0.10 per MB so definitely monitor your usage closely — which, by the way, can be done quite easily using one of the widgets on the MiFi 2372 dashboard.

Several days ago, we saw Google’s Andy Rubin pawing an unreleased Motorola tablet running Android 3.0… and we liked it. Now, to further whet your appetite, a tantalizing screen shot of Honeycomb’s 3D live wallpapers, along with some device specifications, have surfaced in Taiwan.

The screen shot taker describes the tablet as “light” and pontificates that the hardware is ready for launch; it is now waiting on Google to finish baking Honeycomb. The Motorola tablet, according to the gentleman who had a close encounter, has a 1280 x 800 display, NVIDIA Tegra 2 T20 processor, 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, 2 megapixel front-facing camera, a microSD card slot, and 32GB of built in storage.

The tablet will be available in both a 7-inch and 10-inch form-factor and should come with three different wireless options for on-the-go connectivity: UMTS, CDMA, or LTE.  Sign us up.

[Via Engadget]

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We knew that we would have the opportunity to pre-order Verizon Wireless’ DROID Pro today, but we didn’t really expect to see the DROID 2 Global. Late last night, Verizon quietly added the D2 Global edition to its handset lineup; the device is live on the the site and available to order. The spec sheet on the DROID 2 Global mirrors that of the original DROID 2, with the exception of an added quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS radio for world roaming capabilities, an upgraded 1.2GHz processor, and a white exterior (we’re assuming black is coming). The more worldly Droid 2 will retail for $199 with a 2-year contract and, if all rumors hold true, will completely replace the original D2 in the next month or so. Go ahead, hit the read link and have a look for yourself.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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Here it is ladies and gentlemen, Nokia’s latest and greatest Symbian handset, the N8. The N8 got a bit of a late start in life, with production and shipping delays a plenty, but the handset is now starting to propagate itself the world over. Available in five different colors, the full-touchscreen device — which is powered by the Symbian^3 operating system — is a sleek, compact handset that packs plenty of hardware features. Capacitive AMOLED display? Check. 12-megapixel camera? Check. HDMI interface? Check. Now the only question becomes: how does this hardware synergize with the device’s software and, ultimately, your work flow? Hit the jump to read our full review.

Specifications

There really isn’t a single negative thing to say about the Nokia N8’s hardware. Seriously. The device packs the aforementioned  3.5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display with a 16:9 (640 x 360 pixels) aspect ratio and supports up to 16.7 million colors (or colours if you’re buying the European version). The handset has a penta-band UMTS radio supporting 850, 900, 1700, 1900, and 2100 MHz frequencies as well as a quad-band GSM radio supporting 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz frequencies. Bottom line: in whatever corner of the globe you happen to find yourself, this phone will, in all likelihood, be picking up some sort of radio signal.

Other notable specs: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, FM Radio receiver, FM Transmitter, Micro-USB port, Nokia 2mm charging connector, 256MB RAM, GPS, aGPS, HDMI-out port, 3.5mm audio video connector, front-facing QVGA camera (640 x 480), 16GB of built-in storage, microSD card slot with support for up to a 32GB card, and a 1200mAh battery.

The only lackluster vital on the N8 is the unit’s 680MHz ARM 11 processor; although, to be completely honest, this isn’t really an issue for the handset. The statistically-challenged processor ushers Symbian around with relative ease and, aside from a few isolated instances, we did not feel that the device was underpowered… in terms of the hardware, at least. 680MHz might not look impressive when compared to 1GHz on paper, but it suits the N8 just fine.

It seems like we’re forgetting something… oh, yes… the Finnish engineers who built this little fella also found room inside the chassis to stuff a 12-megapixel camera with a two-stage shutter, Xenon flash, and Carl Zeiss lens; the 12-megapixel shooter is capable of capturing video in sweet, sweet 720p HD at 25 fps. We’ll cover the camera more later, but here’s the teaser: it’s ridiculously good.

Hardware

The first thing you’re going to notice when you pick up the N8 is that it is light. Eerily light. As we said, the handset has a 1200mAh battery — which is on the smaller side for smartphones these days — and we’re assuming some weight was saved there. After you get over the weight you’ll immediately notice the sheer amount of things present on the outside of the phone. On the front of the device is a precariously placed “home” button, a small mic opening, a front-facing camera, and a proximity sensor (which is oddly visible). On the right of the device is the volume up-down rocker, a spring loaded screen-lock switch, and the dedicated two-stage camera button. On the left of the device — again from top to bottom — is a two-piece plastic flap that covers the microSD card and SIM slots, and just below that is a micro-USB charging port. The bottom of the device contains a centered, 2mm Nokia charging connector. The top of the device has a 3.5mm headphone jack, an HMDI-out port (which is covered by a plastic flap), and the power button. The rear of the N8 has a protrusion to house the 12-megapixel shooter, xenon flash, and Carl Zeiss lens; there is also a small hole at the bottom to attach one of those wrist-strap thingies (which we will never understand or support).

The front and rear housing of the N8 are constructed of metal and the rounded top and bottom sections of the device are constructed from plastic; the device’s radio antennas are located at both the top and bottom.

The device is available in five colors: silver white, dark gray (or grey), orange, blue, and green. If you are one of those people with a discerning eye, you’ll notice that the top and bottom portions of the phone (the rounded parts constructed of plastic) have a slightly different color than the main housing (made of metal). It doesn’t really bother us all that much (re: at all) and we’re glad to see Nokia didn’t go all white iPhone 4 and hold the handset back to perfect the paint.

Battery

The battery life on the N8 is what you’ve come to expect from Nokia — very good. By default, when you power-on the handset, the screen saver is set to display the time. This means that after that 3.5-inch AMOLED screen times out it doesn’t actually shut off; rather it goes dark and displays a nice analog or digital clock. The way the device is shipped you’ll be lucky to get 12 hours from the battery. If you go ahead and disable the screen saver, however, you can nearly triple that. Bottom line: buy a Timex and disable the screen saver.

As we alluded to: with two push email accounts set up on the device and the screen saver off we easily could get 36-hours of battery life out of the device. Obviously, your mileage will vary depending on usage.

Calling

As a long-time iPhone user, I know a thing or two about dropped calls. With all of the empirical knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years, I would go as far as to say I am an expert on dropped calls, especially when on AT&T’s network in the Boston area. Taking into account my past experiences — combined with the fact that I have little to no faith in AT&T’s network — I was shocked to find that I did not once drop a call while testing the N8 with my AT&T SIM. This little, Finnish, herring-loving handset was covalently bonded to Ma’ Bell’s network. It was, to say the least, very impressive. Call quality coming from the set is great — no buzzing or white noise in the background — and the speakerphone is both loud and clear. Say what you will about Nokia handsets, the folks from Finland know how to build a smartphone that earns the latter half of that name.

The handset is also capable of making video calls, a feature that is fairly useless in the U.S., but since Nokia was kind enough to build it in we thought it was worth a mention. You can use the front facing camera to make VoIP video calls using services like Fring in both the U.S. and abroad.

Camera/Video

The camera is by far our favorite part of this device. Is it as simple to use as the shooter on the iPhone or DROID X? No. Does it take amazing pictures? Yes.

From the home screen you can fully-depress the N8’s dedicated shutter button to activate the camera, and the camera UI gives you the pertinent information you need without being too crowded. You have “options”, an on-screen capture button, and the “exit” key along the bottom of the screen when holding the device horizontally; this might be a good time to mention that all the camera’s on screen menus stay in the landscape orientation even when you hold the phone vertically (portrait).

Along the top of the screen you are presented with the current shooting mode — your shooting options are automatic, manual, close-up, portrait, landscape, sport, night, and night portrait — along with how many images the device can store with the memory available, what resolution the camera is set to (the camera can shoot in 12, 9, 3, 1.3, or 0.3 megapixel modes), and a battery meter. The right side of the screen presents you with the option to switch to video-capture mode, flash settings (on, off, automatic, and red-eye reduction), and settings. The settings key, which is a picture of a little wrench, is used to select scene mode, face detect, self timer, color tone, white balance, exposure, ISO, contrast, sharpness and has a shortcut to the photo gallery.

The camera is set to shoot in 9-megapixel mode by default but if we know you, and we think we do, you’re going to go ahead and ratchet that resolution right on up to a full 12 megapixels. With the built-in 16GB of memory in the N8, you can store well over 6,000 12MP images (obviously this will depend on how much else you load onto your N8 in the way of music and programs).

To get the very best images out of your N8 you really do have to utilize the preset modes – again: automatic, manual, close-up, portrait, landscape, sport, night, and night portrait. Leaving the camera in automatic can result in grainy photos when inside or shooting close up, however adjusting the mode to portrait or macro respectively did yield clearly better results. As with most cell phone cameras, and point-and-shoot cameras for that matter, shooting outside is never really an issue due to the abundance of natural light.

When you flip the switch on the camera in order to capture 720p video, you are presented with a similar on-screen setup, though your options are much more toned down. Available video modes are automatic, low light, and night; you can also manually adjust the white balance and color-tone if you so choose. You can record in three video qualities as well: high, TV high quality, or sharing quality. High is a full 720p in the 16:9 aspect ratio, TV high is in the 4:3 aspect ratio, and sharing is setup with a limited time and bitrate for MMS. Both the high and TV high aspect ratios record in MP4 format and the sharing settings records in 3GP.

Software

All right, here is where things start to get a little dicey: Symbian^3. Don’t get us wrong, we like Symbian and we understand its function and utility in the marketplace. But when you bring a full-touchscreen device to the U.S., you’re instantly going to be matched up against the iPhones, EVOs, and Incredibles that already exist in the marketplace. And to be frank, those are fair comparisons to make. The N8 was not birthed into a market absent of other devices, and for that reason it can’t be treated as such. We’re not going to go as far as Gizmodo and declare the device “irrelevant before it launched,” but, to put it mildly, Symbian^3 is a huge disappointment.

Let’s start with some of the things Symbian does right. The device allows for multiple home screens (a la Android), utilizes functional widgets to display pertinent information, and makes accessing phone controls very easy. Just as in Android, swiping left and right on the home screen will take you to a second or third home screen; you can only have three. From there you can add up to six widgets to each screen. Unfortunately, the widgets can’t be resized to display more information and the default size only allows for two or three lines for information to display (e.g. the email widget can only display the first two messages in your inbox). In the upper right and left of the device’s screen are the battery meter and profile selector, respectively. Tapping on the device’s signal meter instantly gives you access to the device’s available connectivity options (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM, Video sharing, etc.), exact battery percentage, alarms and world time, and available WLAN networks. We’ve got a short video demo of this below. We like the quick access to some of the controls that you often have to go diving through the phone to get to.

The HDMI-out on the device (big props to Nokia for including the adapter with the phone) also works really well. When you hook up your N8 to your television via a HDMI cable you actually see the phone’s entire OS right on your screen. Home screen, emails, widgets, whatever… it’s all there. When you play a properly encoded video through the N8, the quality is ridiculously good. We did our viewing on a 42-inch 1080p LG set and the experience was awesome. You will not be disappointed.

Okay, now it’s time to take the gloves off. The real beef we have with the device is how utterly complicated it makes simple tasks. Let’s start out with an easy one: typing. There is no full-QWERTY soft-keyboard layout on the N8 when you hold the phone in portrait mode. Let me repeat that, no QWERTY in portrait. Your options are to use a T9 style predictive text keypad or the real old-school method of just hitting the number key as many times as you need to in order to get your desired result. When we began using the phone, T9 was like a fun trip down memory lane. After about 90 minutes, when we just wanted to get stuff done, it became a huge bottleneck. At 3.5 inches, the phone’s screen might be a bit small for an on-screen keyboard, but we would have at least liked the option to try it. We prefer to use our phones in portrait mode so flipping the phone 90-degrees every time we had some serious typing to do became a nuisance.

We’ve have never really appreciated the whole addressing system in Symbian. Open an email or text message, start typing someone’s name… nothing. You can either hit the “To:” button and be presented with your contacts; try to search and you’re presented with a keyboard that is, for whatever reason, in alphabetical order A-Z. After you finally get your contact in the “To:” line (you better hope you only need to send your message to one persons) you’re presented with the message body. Flip the phone horizontally for a full keyboard. It just seems like work and doesn’t flow.

The one thing the email application does seem to do right is attachments. There is a clearly visible button for it and the options of what you can attach are pretty much wide open… if you ever manage to finish typing your email.

Another huge annoyance is the limited selection of applications for the device. Want a decent — not good, just decent — Twitter client? You better be ready to fork out $10 for Gravity. The only applications we found moderately acceptable were WhatsApp, Google Maps, and Foursquare. Most of the device’s applications don’t utilize notifications in any way, you have to either turn on email notifications (for service like Twitter and Facebook) or just manically open the program to see if you have new data. This isn’t the most efficient way to use a smartphone.

After a week and a half with the device it finally hit us: the overall flow of the device is just very primitive. There isn’t anything really integrated or sexy about how Symbian gets things done. Can you get the device to do what you want? With enough time and effort, yes. Is it attractive when there are other options in the market place? No.

Summary

The N8 really does sadden us. I mean, come on… read that hardware stat sheet again. Slap Maemo or MeeGo on this puppy, call it a work-in-progress, promise frequent updates, and you might — repeat might — have a winner. As is, with Symbian^3 as its OS, the N8 is unacceptable when compared to other available handsets in the States.

We are fairly sure that outside the U.S. this device will be the best-selling Symbian set Nokia’s ever made. Those who are used to (or actually like) the ebb and flow of Symbian will see the device as a true high-end handset and a successor to their current phone. However, as we said before, we’re a U.S.-based blog and our reviews compare like devices, at like price points, that are available in the U.S. market. Taking all that into account, the N8, at $549, is a disappointment. It pains us to see Nokia spend time, money, and talent on a device that we can guarantee will have no appeal to U.S. consumers.

Click on over to our Nokia N8 Gallery!

One of our solid Apple sources has just let us know some pretty interesting (and exciting) information surrounding Apple’s upcoming iPhone devices. For starters, we have been told that iPhone model 3,2 — what everyone is assuming to be the Verizon (or at least CDMA-compatible) phone — just hit the “AP” testing stage. This is the very last stage before retail release; final hardware, almost final software. Here is the odd thing, though… the iPhone 3,2 unit, we have been exclusively told, contains a SIM card slot. This is interesting for a multitude of reasons, and presents several different scenarios:

• The iPhone 3,2 could be the mythical CDMA + GSM/HSPA device that would support Verizon, AT&T, and the other current worldwide iPhone 4 carriers frequencies. The mid-cycle refresh would bring an updated antenna design for the current iPhone 4 and bring CDMA-compatibility; essentially, Verizon Wireless subscribers would have the same device as AT&T subscribers.
• The iPhone 3,2 could be a CDMA-capable iPhone that houses a SIM card for global roaming capabilities; though that certainly seems more complicated than just having one single glove that would fit both hands.
• One last possibility that the iPhone model 3,2 would simply be a slightly different design that doesn’t suffer from the same antenna attenuation as the current model; though that would be a little disappointing.

As far as the next generation iPhone 5, our source has also indicated to us that device has hit the “EVT” stage in the development cycle. The “EVT” stage is the engineering verification test phase, before the “DVT” phase.

Today, Verizon Wireless announced the availability of the ZTE Fivespot global hotspot. The internationally-compliant mobile hotspot will support the following frequencies: CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev. A/Rev. 0: 800/1900 MHz, WCDMA/HSDPA/HSUPA: 850/1900/2100 MHz, and GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz. The device will be available starting on October 7 for $99.99 with a 2-year service contract (after a $100 mail-in rebate).Available domestic and international data plans offered will be as follows:

Domestic

• $39.99 monthly access for 250 MB monthly allowance and $0.10/MB overage
• $59.99 monthly access for 5 GB monthly allowance and $0.05/MB overage

Prepaid Mobile Broadband plans are also available:

• $15 for 100 MB (one day of use)
• $30 for 300 MB (one week of use)
• $50 for 1 GB (30 days of use)
• $80 for 5 GB (30 days of use)

International

• $129.99 monthly access (5 GB allowance for the United States and Canada, $0.05/MB overage), 100 MB allowance in select countries ($0.005/KB after allowance)
• $219.99 monthly access (5 GB allowance for the United States and Canada, $0.05/MB overage), 200 MB allowance in select countries ($0.005/KB after allowance)
• GlobalAccess Pay Per Use for occasional use must be purchased with a $59.99 Mobile Broadband service plan in the United States. The Pay Per Use rate is $0.002/KB in Canada, $0.005/KB in Mexico, and $0.02/KB in more than 200 other destinations.

The device will work in over 200 countries; 120 of them with 3G speeds.

Read

RIM’s mythical sliding device finally got official after years and years of rumors. It’s being released tomorrow exclusively on AT&T and features the all new BlackBerry 6 operating system. We’re talking multitouch, gestures, redone multimedia applications, and a whole lot more. It packs the best camera of any BlackBerry, a touch screen, full keyboard, and even an optical trackpad to help with navigation. Not to mention it has a web browser that is actually usable, and everything is packed in a pretty tight package. We have been using a BlackBerry Torch 9800 for over 5 days, and we’re excited to share our thoughts on it with you.

Hardware

Solid. That’s the first word that comes to mind. The second? Heavy and bulky. I love using this line more than RIM executives have played it out: RIM plans three years out. Unfortunately, they must still be planning for 2007, because the device is pretty thick compared to modern and current smartphones. It’s very well manufactured and doesn’t appear to be cheap, yet… it feels pretty cheap. The casing is a glossy budget-conscious plastic, and the four BlackBerry buttons are glorified piano black plastic. I can’t imagine how stunning a partly brushed gun metal / dark grey stainless steel BlackBerry would be. Cut off the sliding mechanism from the Torch and make the device that thin, and you’d have me seriously interested. Well, you’d have to throw a decent OS on that bad boy of course.

RIM’s optical trackpad makes an appearance here, as it should, and it works great. It’s very clickable, and doesn’t change the course of history — same trackpad you know and love. The four black piano keys are a little tougher to describe. Since each key is attached to its significant other, it is at times a tad bit difficult to accurately press either the send or end key (both on the sides of the device). They’re much smaller than their respective keys on the Bold 9000 or Bold 9700 and give less — they are almost flush with the device — but after some daily usage, it isn’t the end of the world.

It pains me to say this, but RIM has once again changed the location of the microUSB charging/data port. It is now located on the lower left side (at the expense of the left side convenience key). It is pretty ridiculous, but it’s also par for the course when you’re dealing with a manufacturer that can’t even get buddy icons to show up in their AOL Instant messaging application after three years. The 3.5mm headset jack that’s usually present on the upper left side has been shipped halfway around the world to the upper right side, followed by its partners in crime, the up and down volume keys. Below those sit the dedicated camera shutter button — half press to autofocus, full press to snap, snap, snap.

We’ve been using the device for over 5 days, yet we didn’t need more than a couple minutes to determine that the lock and mute keys on top of the device are extremely gentle. Since RIM AT&T doesn’t ship their flagship product with a holster (first time ever, I believe), we can’t tell you how many times the device got unlocked by mistake in our pockets. End of the world? No, but it’s not the best design that’s existed. While we’re talking about design, we’d have loved it if RIM would have pushed their device design identity forward a bit. Unfortunately the Torch looks pretty dated from a design perspective.

As far as internals go, the BlackBerry Torch is meticulously planned out. It uses an Marvell 624MHz CPU, 512MB of RAM (also for application storage), 4GB of internal storage, packs a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, tri-band UMTS/HSDPA 3.6Mbps, aGPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. For a flagship product, we’d expect nothing less than a 1GHz CPU, though the BlackBerry Torch seems to perform decently with light usage.

Display

Sad. It literally makes me sad — and I’m not phased that easily. It really hits you how bad the screen is when you compare it to a BlackBerry 9700 because of how much larger the 9800 screen is. Text is pixelated, normally crisp images look low quality by comparison, and web browsing is unusable without zooming in constantly. It takes away from the experience, and if there is something RIM doesn’t understand, it’s presentation. With a high quality, beautiful, large screen, you can at least show that you’re playing game to the average user. Unfortunately for RIM, this would mean even more fragmentation with their devices and a higher resolution screen would also highlight their general lack of focus on UI even more. For instance, when holding the BlackBerry button to bring up the transparent multitasking popover (by the way, do you know which BlackBerry application was the first to do a transparent popover?), RIM forgot to make the effect stretch to the edge of the display, so you actually see through the effect on the right side. Huge deal? Not at all, just representative of how Research In Motion overall could care less about the small things that can up and actually make a product.

We also have to say we noticed some wonkiness with the touchscreen side of the display at times. Mostly erroneous touch events when on a phone call (touching the top part of the display set off the lower touch buttons), though we’re not sure if this is a software or hardware issue.

Keyboard

Look, here’s the thing: all of you moaning about having to have a physical keyboard need to suck it up and get used to typing on a capactive screen. It’s what most phones will be in the near future and all in all, it’s superior to physical keys when you look at the big picture. Customizable keyboards and layouts, thinner, more solid, less clunky handsets — everything is moving over to touch and it’s for the better. If you’re an iPhone user and you pick up a BlackBerry (especially the Torch) you literally think to yourself, “What in the hell am I holding in my hands?” It’s that bad.

I have never in my life seen a worse onscreen keybaord than the one RIM included. The fact the phone has a physical keyboard is no excuse, this is an insight into what RIM is thinking, and it’s completely disappointing. The virtual keyboard looks like a Swype Android keyboard without the sexiness. Keys are tough to hit, the symbol shift key is awkwardly placed, and above all, you can’t see what key you’re hitting since the popups that display when you touch a key are practically useless. It’s almost insulting that there’s even a virtual keyboard at all.

Switching gears to the physical slide-out chiclet keyboard: it’s good, very good. RIM usually knocks these out of the park and the Torch’s keyboard is no exception, for the most part. Keys are graciously sized, pretty contoured, infinitely and deliciously clickable (the Torch totally doesn’t pass the typing-in-bed-while-someone-is-sleeping-next-to-you test). The keyboard is modeled after the devices in the BlackBerry Bold lineup, and even carries over some nice design elements; one of them being the chrome struts that serve as keyboard row dividers. If we had to complain about the keyboard, it would be that the keys seem to be pretty hollow and, well, cheap. It kind of sounds like bubble wrap if you run your fingers over them, and they aren’t as luxurious as the original Bold’s keyboard (obviously from a size perspective) in feel. We believe the keys are slightly less raised than a traditional form-factor BlackBerry device, and that’s quite an accomplishment — have you ever used a Palm Pre — but a small part of us yearns for that perfect, perfect keyboard.

Phone

Ah, making phone calls on a BlackBerry. It’s actually pretty enjoyable. Dialing phone numbers on the keypad is effortless (and extremely quick, too), checking your recent calls is straight forward, and calls were generally pleasurable-sounding, crisp, and volume-packed. One exception would be the fact that sometimes calls can sound a tiny bit distorted (mostly the top end) if the volume is up all the way on the ear speaker.

Something that annoyed the heck out of us was RIM’s proximity sensor. It literally is a pulsing/blinking red LED light that is visible to the human eye. Do you see this when you’re on the phone? Not at all, but now that we have seen it, we can’t not notice it when we dial a phone number and bring the phone up to our face. It’s ridiculously amateur-ish and we don’t remember the BlackBerry Storm2 (also a device with a proximity sensor) doing this.

Speakerphone unfortunately isn’t as successful as traditional phone calling on the BlackBerry Torch. It’s volume output was low to acceptable, but callers had trouble hearing us properly most of the time.

OS

BlackBerry operating system 6 isn’t an overhaul of the BlackBerry OS, and while it brings a couple API-level changes, it’s mostly top layer UI modifications. For starters, BlackBerry 6 brings modal popups, press-and-hold gestures, multitouch gestures like pinch to zoom and two finger select, and drum roll please… a WebKit-based web browser with tabs.

In addition to the above, there are a bunch more enhancements: universal search, multiple contact lists (sadly you can’t link duplicate contact entries), a social networking application that can aggregate all your social networks/accounts in addition to posting simultaneously to them, redone multimedia applications, a new camera interface, kinetic scrolling (though we would have liked to see even more of this), a notifications drop down menu, and much more.

In general, BlackBerry 6 seems a bit more cohesive in some ways, yet it seems to be pulled in different directions at times. For instance, the homescreen now combines the entire application icon view with a drop down notification view and a wireless networking view. Think about this, you are pulled in literally different directions by flipping through the aforementioned menus, and for basically no reason. If you want to get crazy, you can actually drop the application drawer up on the homescreen to reveal more than the default 4 icons. You can increase the view to 8 icons, 12 icons, or even slide the drawer all the way to the top if you wish.

Something we’re pleased as punch to see in BlackBerry 6 is faster application downloading/installation. Previously it would take forever to download apps (or anything for that matter), but in BlackBerry 6 the progress bar zips along just fine most of the time, and this is a welcome improvement. The phone also boots much, much quicker (everything is relative, it’s still a good minute or two)

We’re not in love with the multiple categories on the homescreen, though. It seems to add unnecessary complexity to an already complex UI. Now, in addition to the wireless connection menu sliding down, the app drawer sliding up, and the notification drawer sliding down, you can also slide left to right and right to left to flip different categories of application?

Unfortunately for BlackBerry 6, and the BlackBerry Torch, we experienced lag, slowdowns, and the dreaded black BlackBerry clock on multiple occasions, even when we weren’t pushing the phone hard. Simple tasks like marking more than one message as read, or exiting the web browser, or updating the social feeds application, set off that clock of death. Once we had to even pull the battery out due to the phone becoming unresponsive from a simple non-taxing task.

Browser

RIM’s new browser couldn’t have come soon enough. Rumored since the first Bold (we heard they were testing a Webkit browser when they were working on the 9000), RIM’s first real web browser is the best it’s ever delivered. In terms of rendering, web pages actually display as if they should on a desktop — correctly and formatted properly most of the time. Pinch to zoom is a go, and while it’s not as fluid as some other platforms out there, it does get the job done. We can’t say we love how the browser reformats text (RIM says it pioneered word wrap, though we have to say Opera Mobile does a pretty good job of this), but for the most part, tabbed browsing and even thumbnails in browser history are nice touches. We like the fact that when using the optical joystick to navigate you actual see an on-screen mouse cursor, though some of the hiccups with RIM’s browser start to overshadow much of their progress.

Since the BlackBerry Torch isn’t packing a bleeding-edge CPU, and since the core OS is pretty outdated, we experienced many slowdowns in panning and zooming, and even standard web page loading. We actually crashed the browser a couple times loading up our favorite non-mobile-optimized sites. This isn’t even with any sort of Flash 10.1 support whatsoever. We’re not sure how RIM will be able to pull that off at all. Unfortunately, as we said before, RIM doesn’t seem to understand presentation, and the web browsing experience on the BlackBerry Torch is neither completely fluid nor competitive to other leading mobile smartphones for the most part.

Camera

RIM’s 5 megapixel camera is certainly a great improvement over their 3.2 megapixel offering. It takes pretty decent photos, and RIM has completely redone their photo-taking UI. Geotagging photos now has a prominent presence, RIM added scene modes (even face detection, portrait, sports, landscape, party, close-up, snow, beach, night and text modes) even though people most likely won’t use them, and there’s a new photo review mode to check out your latest shot and decide whether to keep it or not.

Unfortunately in a time when manufacturers are competing to see who can capture the highest quality, faster frame rate HD video, RIM fails to join the pack with 640×480 resolution video capture. Video taken on an iPhone 4 or Motorola DROID X could sometimes pass as being shot on a real video device and not a cell phone, but video from the BlackBerry Torch unfortunately can’t.

Battery:

We’ve been pleased by how much battery we can squeeze out of the Torch. Like all BlackBerry devices, RIM knows how to optimize, optimize, and optimize how much power their smartphones utilize, and the Torch is no exception in that regard. We’re not sure if we’d rate the BlackBerry Torch as having better battery life than it’s cousin, the Bold 9700, but we’d say it’s pretty close. It no question can power a moderately-heavy user through a pretty long day, and for a casual user, expect the phone to last more than a day without a recharge.

Conclusion:

We actually liked the BlackBerry Torch more towards the end of our use than we did at first. Once you get into using the device, you slightly warm up to it. With that said, I can’t help but think that the Torch goes against everything that a BlackBerry stands for. Or used to stand for. Simple, pick up and go, and focused. With BlackBerry 6, a touch screen, and a sliding form-factor, the Torch is not simple, it’s not a pick up and go device, and it’s not focused. Just the process of sliding the display up and away from the keyboard and dealing with a touch screen seems extraneous. There is much more work involved to use the BlackBerry Torch, definitely not less.

The device is a decent attempt to keep some of RIM’s current user base happy. Unfortunately, as you’ve read above, in our opinion, it’s not enough to stop the exodus of BlackBerry users switching to Android and iPhone devices for the most part, and it’s definitely not good enough to draw in boatloads of new customers. Definitely not when it’s on display next to an iPhone 4 and a Samsung Captivate in the store. RIM has possibly missed the most crucial and best chance to show the market and their loyal customers that they know what they’re doing.

In a world where things are supposed to get simpler and easier to use, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 unfortunately complicates things. Is it the “best BlackBerry yet”? It’s certainly possible. Though it’s most definitely not the easiest to use, and even RIM’s best product at this point in time seems so far off from being competitive in the smartphone market landscape. Our first photo in the review sort of says it all — it’s a nice phone that is easily overshadowed by something newer, leaner, and much sexier. We’re not sure we’d recommend the 9800 to any new cell phone buyer unless they had a specific need for a BlackBerry. Even then, there’s a good chance we’d recommend the Bold 9700 (or Bold 9700 refresh device) with OS 6 on it. While the BlackBerry Torch isn’t a complete screw-up, it’s far from the Apple-killing, Android-slaying device RIM thought it would be. Unfortunately RIM’s next product has to be a home run for them to continue winning the ballgame, or we’ll start to see some strike outs. If they can’t manage to excite consumers with the next go-around, RIM will most likely be relegated to a low-to-mid end market player, something Nokia certainly knows a thing or two about.

Click on over to our BlackBerry Torch 9800 gallery!