
BlackBerry Torch vs Apple iPhone 4
We compare the BlackBerry Torch 9800 against the Apple iPhone 4 to see which touchscreen smartphone offers better features for all your business needs
BlackBerry Torch 9800 vs Apple iPhone 4
Published on Nov 2, 2010
While the BlackBerry Torch 9800 has been launched in India, the Apple iPhone 4 will soon be arriving in this part of the world. RIM has introduced BlackBerry Torch offering a capacitive touchscreen, upgraded OS and a whole lot more to boot. Although antennagate might have bothered Apple for its latest device iPhone 4 lately, but undoubtedly, it's still a stunning phone.
The question is, which should you should invest in if you're planning to buy a touchscreen maestro?
Screen
If we're going to compare numbers, the iPhone 4's screen wins hands down, with a much higher resolution 640x960 pixels, 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen, but don't rule out the BlackBerry Torch's 360x480 pixel, 3.2 inch display. It's crisp, bright and flawless, just as the BlackBerry Bold 9700's is.
The iPhone's resolution may be higher, but seeing as it has more pixels than the human eye can actually see, it's more show over substance.
It is very responsive though and for this reason, the iPhone wins, but after all Apple has had much more practice with capacitive screens than BlackBerry, so you'd kind of expect them to win this one anyway.
Winner: Apple iPhone 4
Processor
The iPhone 4's 1Ghz processor may pack a punch, but this doesn't mean it runs faster than the BlackBerry Torch 9800's. The latter may only pack in a 624MHz processor, but BlackBerry memory management is much better than the iPhone's.
At some points, the iPhone struggles and without full fat multitasking, this is a little bit disappointing.
The BlackBerry Torch, however, steams along and doesn't need an enhanced processor to power multitasking as the iPhone 4 does.
Winner: BlackBerry Torch 9800
Browser
The iPhone 4's Safari browser was certainly the best on a smartphone up to now, but the BlackBerry Torch's WebKit browser beats the iPhone's. Firstly, it supports tabbed browsing. Sure, you can access multiple pages on the Safari browser, but it's not as smooth as switching between tabs.
The browser also uses your text size preferences to resize text within the browser - ensuring it's always the size you want it to be. The Blackberry webKit browser also renders websites much better than the previous browser, finally!
Winner: BlackBerry Torch 9800
Applications
Although BlackBerry will be introducing new APIs to developer, including access to the HTML 5-powered WebKit browser API and carrier billing, applications still come secondary to the App Store's offering. Sure, BlackBerry offers more CRM apps for business users, but for consumers, the iPhone easily conquers BlackBerry.
BlackBerry apps are also notably more expensive than iPhone applications, while there's a lot less choice in App World. You may be able to buy BlackBerry apps from third parties unlike for the iPhone, but iPhone apps are much more inventive and cover a wider range compared to BlackBerry.
Winner: Apple iPhone 4
Keyboard
As every touchscreen phone user will agree, touchscreen keyboards are great once you've got used to them - the iPhone's most certainly included. But hardware keyboards just work, no getting used to required.
This is especially the case when using one so marvellous as the BlackBerry Torch's. Although you can opt to use one of the Torch's virtual keyboards (there are four choices - landscape QWERTY, portrait QWERTY, Alphanumeric and BlackBerry's Suretype), we'd highly recommend using the hardware slide out QWERTY if you're planning on writing a long email.
Winner: BlackBerry Torch 9800
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