A BlackBerry With A Touch Screen And A Slide-Out Keyboard?

YES! The word is out, RIM is releasing world’s first smartphone with a BlackBerry® keyboard and full touch screen – the BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800. The Blackberry Torch 9800 will be the first RIM device to run the Blackberry 6 operating system, so expect faster Web browsing and downloads. It will also feature virtual and slide-out keyboards,  a 1GHz processor, 5-megapixel camera and 512MB of RAM. BlackBerry 6 has the new universal search and auto-wrap text zoom features. The next-generation Blackberry and possibly a new tablet computer to go head-to-head with iPhone and iPad. It’s like the Pepsi-Coca Cola wars all over again.

With the new BlackBerry Torch smartphone, RIM have combined touch-qwerty experience available, seamlessly incorporating signature BlackBerry keyboard and precision trackpad in a striking design that simply feels great in your hand. One of the things I love the most about the BlackBerry Torch design is the way it allows user to easily transition between using the touch screen, trackpad and keyboard interfaces. Very handy indeed! 

The BlackBerry Torch is also the first BlackBerry smartphone to ship with the new web browser - a WebKit-based browser that can operate quickly, beautifully and efficiently. Courtesy of BlackBerry 6 OS, the BlackBerry Torch receives a range of key upgrades in the software department. A new full HTML Webkit browser offers tabbed browsing for accessing multiple web pages at the same time, and the browser supports the popular pinch-to-zoom multi-touch gesture. BlackBerry 6 also gives users a single view for social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Furthermore, a next-generation messaging experience includes group messaging for up to 10 people and locations, while a new universal search is available throughout the BlackBerry experience. 

BlackBerry 6 is scheduled to be first introduced to the market with the BlackBerry Torch on August 12, and BlackBerry 6 will be available in the months ahead (pending carrier certifications) on some of our leading smartphones, including the BlackBerry® Pearl™ 3G 9100, BlackBerry® Bold™ 9650 and BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700.

RIM indeed have a long history of building groundbreaking technology, each day, thousands of RIM employees are focused on enhancing softwares, services and smartphones in order to continue meeting our changing wants and needs. The launch of the BlackBerry Torch with BlackBerry 6 is one of the most significant launches in history and this amazing new smartphone brings together many of RIM’s core strengths into one fluid and superior user experience.