Blackberry Tour

Blackberry has established itself as one of the leaders in the Smartphone industry. Thanks to their powerful devices, the best messaging devices in the industry and a slew of new devices, it’s not hard to see why President Obama fought to keep his. That said, we will be reviewing the new Tour which is available on both the Verizon and Sprint network. © ZiaTech.com

DESIGN:

Contrary to popular opinion, the Tour is a totally new device and not an upgrade to the Curve. Although it will eventually replace the 8300 Curve on both networks, it is a totally new platform. That said, it does take many of its design cues from the new Curve 8900 as well as the Bold. Although it is a tad bigger then the 8900 Curve it still is smaller then the Bold and carries a more sophisticated look.

Starting the feature list is a beautiful 3.6 inch screen (measured diagonally) that boasts 65,000+ colors and 480×360 pixel resolution. The keyboard is also a beauty and is arguably the best keyboard on a Blackberry device. Its neither too stiff or two soft and typing is smooth thanks to its grip texture to prevent fingers from slipping.

The Tour sports internal memory of 256MB as well as expandable memory via a a microSD slot. The phone comes with a 2GB microSD card. Other features include a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

In terms of wireless technology, the Tour does not carry WiFi but does carry Bluetooth 2.0 as well as GPS and GSM slot for roaming in over 220 countries and data and email in 175.

PERFORMANCE:

Blackberry’s are know to give solid performance, and the Tour is no different. Starting with the screen resolution, we were impressed to say the least, although it may not be as big as other phones on the market, it makes up in resolution what it lacks in size.

Multimedia performance was also a great improvement from that of the Curve. While it still does not come close to a dedicated MP3 player or PMP device, it is a nice novelty for listening to tunes on the go or watching a video or two.

Call quality was great and the Tour is rated at 5 hours of continuous talk time or 15 days of standby time. In my tests I was able to pull out 6 hours of continuous talk time out of the phone. Due to the lack of WiFi you don’t have to worry about battery drain expect for the Bluetooth option.

3G speeds were also on the mark, and while Verizon may not have the fastest network it still offers much better reliability rather then that of AT&T. 3G via Sprint was also great and downloading a 35 MB file took 5 minutes when EVDO Rev A was on.

All in all the Tour is a solid choice for those who are just as much interested in play as work. While its browser still misses the mark it is a great improvement over previous devices and thanks to a 3.2 megapixel, you will be able to capture those priceless moments in still photography as well as video clips.

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