• Tips to avoid blackberry battery drain
• Best blackberry battery monitor apps
• Easy settings changes to extend your blackberry battery life

How to Maximize Your Blackberry Battery life

So, you must have been reading this page to know more about how to maximize the blackberry battery life. People want to use 2G, Wi-Fi, and play games all the time on their smart phones and still want to have a great battery backup. If you are one of them then there are few simple tips by which you can enjoy extended blackberry battery life of your blackberry handset very easily. We can recommend either installing a blackberry battery monitor app, buy a new blackberry battery charger or change simply a few blackberry settings.

Blackberry Battery Life Tip – Turn off Wi-Fi network if not available

Wi-Fi affects blackberry handsets battery crucially. When compared using phone on Wi-Fi saves lot of battery. If you use Wi-Fi on Bold 9900for hold day then also you will find that about 80% battery is still there in your set. But it is advisable to turn your battery off when you are not using it or in areas where Wi-Fi is not available.

To disable your WI-Fi Go to your home screen tap on the Network Settings -> Uncheck Wi-Fi.

Blackberry Battery Life Tip – Keep your backlight Dim

It is a human tendency that when someone buys a new phone, he or she wants to show off and like to set the brightness to the maximum. But it is better to keep your backlight dim to save your battery.

To change the brightness of your backlight

Go to Options >
Display >
Screen Display >
Adjust brightness to 10.

Blackberry Battery Life Tip – Lessen your backlight timeout

It is advisable to keep the screen timeout time adjusted to the minimum time as it saves the battery of your phone. You should adjust the timing of screen timeout to not more than 30-40 seconds after you have done with your work on your phone. This helps in saving a lot of your phone’s battery.

For adjusting the Backlight timeout

Go to Options >
Display >
Screen Display >
Change backlight timeout to 20 or 30 seconds.

Blackberry Battery Life Tip – Turn Bluetooth Off

When it comes to Bluetooth, BlackBerry phones are considered to be great as you can connect your phone to a variety of devices like headsets, computers, speakers and much more. But that doesn’t mean that you keep your Bluetooth on always as it slowly eats up your phone battery.

You can disable your BB’s Bluetooth when it’s not in use by unchecking the Bluetooth in Network Settings in your Home screen area.

Blackberry Battery Life Tip – Networking Settings should be changed in Poor Coverage areas

If you observe that your phone is not able to find the full network zone then it’s better to turn the data off or change your Network Settings from 3G/H+ down to 2G.

To change your Network settings,

Click on the Network Settings area on your home screen ->
tap on Networks and Connections ->
Mobile Network ->
select 2G near Network Mode.

Blackberry Battery Life Tip – Try to keep phone on Bedside Mode

You may not be aware of this feature for turning off or on automatically at certain times. This feature saves your battery to some extent. One amazing fact about this feature is that if you have an alarm to be buzzed before your turn on time, you phone will turn on automatically to ring the alarm.

Bedside mode is also somewhat similar present inside the Options under Clock. Through this feature your device’s LED, Radio and screen backlight lowers automatically. Moreover your phone calls and SMSs remain active in Bedside Mode.

Choose Auto On/Off in Options ->
Device.
Here you can also select Weekends, Weekdays or time you want your phone to Turn On or off.

Blackberry Battery Life Tip – Unused Apps must be closed

Battery life can be easily extended if you close all the unused apps of your phone. Especially the apps that uses your GPS locations or keep on doing some other task must be turned off when not required. For this purpose you have been provided with an App Switcher to check for all the running apps and then closing the unwanted ones.

Just press and hold your Menu Button,
App Switcher will start
Choose the apps you want to close.

Buy a new blackberry battery or charger

When the blackberry settings changes are not making much difference, consider buying a new blackberry battery or charger. Especially with the blackberry battery is not charging at all.

How much is a blackberry battery?

The cost of a new blackberry battery like the most models blackberry battery c-s2, blackberry battery d-x1& blackberry battery c-x2 is very cheap. The cost varies from $5 to $15.

Best blackberry battery monitor APP.

BatteryPlus – Battery Booster and Manager $5.99

BatteryPlus is a powerful battery boosting tool and power management application specially designed for BlackBerry

Battery Watch – Free Power Consumption Monitor FREE

Get a quick overview on your BlackBerry® device s battery state.

Battery Monitor $0.99

See how much talk time, stand-by, mobile browser time you have left.  Also, receive notifications when your battery levels are reaching a low capacity

Add your Blackberry Battery Life tips to our comments

However, there is one thing this particular model offers that a lot of the smartphones don’t and that is, as well as a touchscreen, a full QWERTY keyboard. This is great for those that prefer to type long emails and messages using a keypad rather than tapping the content out on a touchscreen pad, this option also offers the best of both worlds to many users.

Blackberry is renowned for being a great all rounder when it comes to both work and play and the newest model has certainly made this even more possible, with an assortment of state of the art features that boast the likes of high quality media and email apps.

The phone is a great option for those that travel a lot with work and have to attend meetings and give presentations in a range of different venues. The phone allows users to access emails and download content from the handset. This content can then be taken from the phone and transferred to a laptop in order to give a presentation.

The phone itself is extremely sleek in style and offers a sophisticated handset that slides apart to reveal the full QWERTY keypad and slides back into place in order to allow users full access of the ample sized touchscreen.

Viewing pictures and videos is a walk in the park due to the size of the screen. It’s also a great way to view webpages. The zoom mechanism allows content to be viewed clearly and can be activated at the touch of a button or a simple tap on the screen.

If you want to view any new mobile phones on the market visit Dial a phone.

BlackBerry Bold 9650 Review

Write a review and share your opinion about the BlackBerry Bold

Blackberry Bold Review Summary  The latest offering in the range of popular BlackBerry Bold model is Bold 9650, and its offers same usability and effectiveness. Loaded with Wi Fi and 3G connectivity, the device maintains RIM’s reputation of immaculate communication. It includes all the high-end features of a smartphone. 3G, Wi Fi, A-GPS Support, up to 32 GB expandable memory Cameras capacity only 3.15 MP; No secondary camera

BlackBerry Bold Video Review

BlackBerry Bold  Photo Gallery

BlackBerry Bold 9650 – The Appearance

Bold 9650 is not drastically different from the other BlackBerry phones. It comes with the same half-display and half-QWERTY format, but yet it maintains a distinct appeal of its own. The metallic borders provide that sophistication in the appearance and the rounded corners at the bottom makes it look smart and cute.  The measurement of the phone is 112 x 62 x 14 mm and it weighs 136 grams. It comes with a TFT display screen of 2.44 inches, which boasts 65K colours. In addition to that, there are touch sensitive optical trackpad, and a full QWERTY keyboard.

BlackBerry Bold 9650 – The OS

The device includes the proprietary Blackberry OS, which ensures that the performance of the handset is effective. The OS ensures faster browsing and easy accessibility to all the applications.

BlackBerry Bold 9650 – Network and Connectivity

The latest BlackBerry Bold device is equipped with good network support. The other BlackBerry devices of this range provide tri band HSDPA and quad band GSM, but Bold 9650 also include a CDMA network option. Therefore, the users of the European market will get access to HSDPA 2100; GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900; and CDMA/EVDO Rev A 800/1900.

BlackBerry Bold 9650 - The Multimedia

Though Blackberry phones are never known for excellent camera features, but still Bold 9650 comes loaded with a decent snapper. It includes a 3 mega pixel camera with LED flash and auto focus along with image stabilization. The camera can shoot videos as well. For further entertainment, this BlackBerry Bold combines media player that can play music files such as MP3/WMA/eAAC+ and video files like MP4/H.263/WMV.

Blackberry Bold 9650 Conclusion

With BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry maps and document editor, Bold 9650 is a perfect device to hold RIM’s reputation. Apart from the serious business features, entertainment options are quite good.

Blackberry Bold 9650 features

• Dimension: 112 x 62 x 14 mm
• Weight: 136g
• 2.44 inches TFT display with 480 x 360 pixels resolution
• Music player (MP3/WMA/eAAC+)
• 3.15 MP camera with autofocus and LED flash
• A-GPS Support
• Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
• Class 10 GPRS and EDGE; Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g; HSDPA at 3.6Mbps
• Bluetooth 2.1, micro-USB 2.0
• microSD memory card slot (expandable up to 32GB; 2GB included)
• Li-Ion 1400 mAh; talktime: up to 5 hrs; standby: up to 312 hours; music play: up to 18 hrs

Apple iPhone 3GS Review	Apple iPhone 3G Review	HTC Google Hero Review	Google G1 Review	Google G2 Magic Review

The 14-second video clip doesn’t give much new information about the device specifications so it still remains pretty much all guesswork there. The touchscreen-enabled slider will come with a trackpad and according to the label on its back will be the next member of the Bold family.

BB OS 6 was expected, along with some other interesting bits – touchscreen, but no SurePress, and a 5MP camera with something called “liquid lens technology”. This leak neither confirms nor denies any of that.

The photos are quire poor – but still, they confirm that the BlackBerry Slider (probably not its real model name) is running BlackBerry OS 6, though (quite expectedly) a pre-release version.

With leaks intensifying so much recently, we suspect that the BlackBerry Slider 9800 official announcement can’t be far away now. Availability though is expected in Q3 at the earliest.

The new Pearl 3G models are both light and compact, yet still pack many of the same hot features as found in RIM’s other 9000 series BlackBerry devices. The new Pearl 3G models measure up at 108mm x 50mm x 13.3mm (4.25in x 1.96in x 0.52in) and each feature a high-res 360 x 400 pixel display. What is even more impressive, however, is that these tiny little smartphones weigh only 93g (3.3oz), making them the smallest BlackBerry smartphones ever.

A 624MHz processor powers a full set of features that includes a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera (with video capture), an optical trackpad controller, GPS and Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), and a high-capacity microSDHC memory card slot. Of course you will also find a media player, speaker independent voice dialing, Bluetooth wireless support, and the BlackBerry App World for finding new applications.

The two BlackBerry Pearl 3G models are powered by a 1150mAh battery that is rated for 5.5 hours of talk time on GSM/EDGE and HSDPA 3G networks. RIM expects the two devices to be available for purchase in May 2010.

Main Features and Specs of BlackBerry Pearl 3G:

• Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM
• High-resolution 2.26-inch 360 x 400 pixels color display (238 ppi)
• 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with flash, video recording and geotagging
• 624 Mhz processor complemented with 256 MB SDRAM
• Optical trackpad for quick, smooth navigation experience
• Built-in GPS for location-based applications like BlackBerry Maps
• Bluetooth v2.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity
• SureType technology can understand and complete words as what you’re typing, aiming for efficient and familiar typing experience
• BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) lets users chat with their closest friends anywhere, anytime
• BlackBerry Media Sync to easy sync photos as well as iTunes and Windows Media Player music with the handset
• Access to a numbers of applications from BlackBerry App World
• Available in 5 variants of color – Piano Black, Opal Pink, Royal Purple, Flash White and Red Gradient
• Talk time: 5 hours ; Standby time: 18 days ; Music playtime: up to 30 hours
• Size: 4.25 x 1.96 x 0.52 inches ; Weigh: 3.3 ounces

Blackberry Bold 9700 Appearance

The Blackberry Bold 9700 comes with a heavy dose of chrome trim, with a large blow to the chin, thin rails it runs on the sides and other thick strips on the upper back. Fortunately, none of the panels has are quite thick enough to show, fingerprints, and the rubbery black plastic used on other parts of the case it comes pretty. The full leather wrapped back that made a splash on the original Bold was a breakdown tinted in a modest patch of black leather on the battery cover, but it’s still the same executive fashion statement. The solid feel of the phone helps to add that overall aura of quality too.

Form-factor aside, the hard data on the Bold 9700 is very similar its predecessor. You get full 3G Internet access (a much-needed function, the fear of many would-be buyers are from the Curve 8900), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 and GPS. As the curve, it also uses a brilliant half-VGA (480 x 360 pixels) display and 3.2 megapixel camera – an upgrade from the 2.0-megapixel model to its original Bold. Out of the box, stacked the Bold comes with only 256 MB of internal memory, but RIM includes a 2GB microSD card in the built-in slot. The slot that is behind the battery compartment can, intelligent, without the actual battery access, and can accommodate cards up to whopping 32 GB (although at the time of publication, map is achieved in that capacity is not yet commercial availability).

Blackberry Bold 9700 Keyboard

The keyboard on the new Bold may seem the most obvious victims of the shrink ray, but the smaller size may not be as uncomfortable as you think. Although a step down from the oversized Bold 9000, the new keyboard has all the crisp feedback for BlackBerrys are known to build everything in one that feels tighter, more refined and quieter than the already admirable Curve. BlackBerry knows, keyboards, and we are convinced this is just about the best QWERTY can fold into a space that size, even if it on the edge too small.

Blackberry Bold 9700 Camera

We loved the 3.2-megapixel camera on the Curve 8900, and the same model in the Bold 9700 is no different planted. It auto focuses with a quick half-pressing the center button and snaps sharp, focused images with proper color of a second later. The LED also flashes patterns workable shots in the dark, although you can get a healthy dose of typical low-light noise expected to go along with it. Unfortunately, the tiny 2.44-inch screen does not quite make the largest viewfinder, and it shows significant latency, as you move the camera.

Blackberry Bold 9700 Battery

Despite the smaller size of the phone has RIM battery capacity of 1500 mAh held for the new Bold, but marks it for 6 hours of talk time and 21 days standby – significantly more than the 4.5 hours of talk time and 13.5 days of standby, that the first model claims. In fact, it now claims better battery life than any other modern BlackBerry.

Blackberry Bold 9700 Screen

The display on the Bold 9700 of 8900 accurately for brightness, resolution and color, that is, it’s amazing. Granted, at 2.44 cm wide, it will not run near full touch-screen phones, but half-VGA brightness, packed into such a small area creates a tack sharp display that even the smallest details can look like text and crisp. A powerful backlight produces all the punch you need to read under all conditions, without washing out the deep blacks and vivid colors.

Blackberry Bold 9700 Summary

As you may recall, we fell in love with the 8900, but could not quite stomach a modern smartphone stuck on EDGE Internet. The Bold 9700 in essence, that award-winning design and adds the crucial missing element in the form of 3G Internet access and a better keyboard, optical trackpad, and even longer lasting battery. Say what you about RIM’s glacial advances and fade OS: Although the Bold 9700, the frills are missing an iPhone or Palm Pre, utilitarian for business users, it is one of the most sophisticated smartphones in the market today.

The BlackBerry Storm 2 9520 feels good to use and is a far superior smartphone compared to the original Storm.

The BlackBerry Storm 2 is the same size as its predecessor and has a 3.25 inch screen which is a normal touchscreen with inbuilt SurePress technology. This means you can scroll using your finger and then press the screen to select – it clicks when you have selected. The screen is also multi-touch so you can type on two areas at once, making it effortless to use.

Like the original, the Storm 2 is a reasonable size but it fits nicely in the palm of your hand. The front is attractive as the only buttons are call, menu, return and call end, which are all touch sensitive and flat, neatly lined beneath the screen. There are a few buttons on the side of the phone including a convenience key for setting your favourite application shortcut.

The SurePress technology is better than on the original Storm, making the screen easier to press. And as you can press two parts of the screen at the same time, browsing web pages, editing documents in Word or Excel, or typing an email is easy. One of the best improvements on the screen is that it locks when the phone is in sleep mode. This means the screen can’t be pressed when the phone is off. There is also an indicator at the top of the phone which flashes different colours for different things such as charging or new message, which is convenient as you need never miss a thing.

The BlackBerry Operating System 5.0 – which is also used on the BlackBerry Bold 9700 – is a user-friendly interface. Each screen on the BlackBerry Storm 2 is minimal and you can click through for more options depending on what you want to view. For example, the connections button, when pressed, will show you all the active and inactive connections available such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – but the screen is kept clutter-free until you want to view what’s available.

If you want hassle-free social networking support, you’ll be pleased that the BlackBerry Storm 2 supports the Facebook Connect feature. This syncs all your Facebook friends’ details onto your phone and lets you poke or message them from your phone straight onto Facebook, similar to the Motorola DEXT. In the Messaging Centre, you can view all your messages in the one place including Facebook, texts and emails.

Staying in touch with contacts is easy too as the phone book lets you build a profile for each person, with picture, birthday, web page, company info etc. This is especially useful for business as you have a client’s details to hand before making a call or sending an email. The email function lets you add both corporate and personal addresses and you can have up to ten accounts.

Key features of BlackBerry Storm 2 9520 :

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 2100 MHz 3G with HSPA support

3.25″ 65K-color capacitive touchscreen of 360 x 480 pixel resolution

Improved touchscreen experience with piezo-electric touch feedback system

3.15 MP autofocus camera, LED flash

BlackBerry OS 5

Wi-Fi and built-in GPS with BlackBerry maps preloaded

2 GB internal storage and a hot-swappable microSD card slot

Landscape on-screen keyboard is as close to hardware keys as we have seen on a touch phone

Nice looks and great build quality

3.5mm standard audio jack

Accelerometer sensor for screen auto-rotate

Bluetooth v2.1 and USB v2.0

Document editor

Good audio quality

Conclusion : The BlackBerry Storm 2 has some great additions to the original Storm. The touchscreen is great to use – the scrolling is on a par with the iPhone 3G S and the SurePress makes the virtual keyboard more like a normal computer keyboard as you physically press the buttons, which is a nice sensation. With access to the BlackBerry App World, a music player, 3.15-megapixel camera, Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger, the Storm 2 is a welcomed successor.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 is the first BlackBerry smartphone to feature an optical, touch-sensitive trackpad instead of a trackball for navigation and I like it. Too often, I found the trackballs to be too loose to help you scroll through lists and menus easily. The trackpad, however, was perfectly responsive to my touch. It also clicked satisfyingly when pressed, unlike the trackballs, which I found often rolled when I was actually trying to press them.

Size-wise, the Curve 8520 is smaller and rounder than the BlackBerry Tour; it’s similar in size (though just a tiny bit thicker) to the ultra-slim BlackBerry Curve 8900. The keyboard is also a bit more cramped than the roomy one found on the Bold, but it’s excellent, nonetheless.

The Curve 8520 is available in black or frost, and unlike the Curve 8900, it lacks the chrome accents around the edge of the phone. Instead, you get a rubberized grip that I found quite comfortable. The phone’s buttons, including the volume controls and a camera key, are integrated into the rubber edge, and are easy to find and use.

The Curve’s screen measures 2.4 inches diagonally, which feels a bit small compared to some of the displays on today’s best phones, which often measure 3 inches or larger. And its resolution is only 320 by 240, which is not as sharp as the high-resolution displays found on other BlackBerry phones, like the Tour and Bold.

Call quality ranged from good to decent in my test calls. My callers sounded loud and mostly clear, and they said the same thing about me. I did notice occasional static during some calls.

The included BlackBerry browser is decent, but not on a par with the excellent mobile browsers found on  the iPhone and Android-based phones. The BlackBerry browser displays Web pages just as you would see them on a computer screen, and lets you zoom in and out easily. Some pages feel slightly cramped on the Curve’s relatively small screen, though.

You get support for Wi-Fi networks for speedy browsing. But you won’t find support for high-speed 3G networks, so if you’re out of Wi-Fi range, you have to rely on the very pokey EDGE network for data access. EDGE speeds are comparable to using dial-up service to access the Internet, so be prepared for slow page loads and plenty of waiting.

Like all BlackBerry phones, the Curve 8520 excels at messaging. It will support 10 personal or business e-mail accounts, and setting them up is a breeze. You also get access to several instant messaging applications, including AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger, plus support for text and multimedia messaging.

The included 2-megapixel camera is pretty basic. It has a digital zoom, but lacks both an auto-focus and a flash. Some of the snapshots it captured were surprisingly good, with bright colors and crisp images — as long as my subjects were sitting still. When a subject moved at all, the results went downhill quickly. The camera also captures decent video clips, though some of my movies looked slightly blurry and choppy.

The Curve 8520 breaks with BlackBerry tradition by offering external controls for its music and video player. These buttons sit in the rubberized edging on the top of the phone, and make it easy to launch the music player without requiring you to dig through the BlackBerry’s sometimes-confusing menu system.

The music and video player is decent, but basic. Videos looked good on the smallish screen, though not as good as they do on the higher-resolution screens of the Bold and the Tour. And while the music player is easy to use, T-Mobile does not offer its own music store. That means you can’t download tunes over-the-air to your phone. If you want music, you’ll have to transfer it yourself using the BlackBerry desktop software.

You won’t find GPS on the BlackBerry Curve 8520, but you can use the Google Maps application, which tracks your location via cell towers. It can’t provide true turn-by-turn driving directions, though.

Conclusion : The BlackBerry Curve 8520 offers nice mix of features for a low price. Sure, it lacks GPS and 3G support, but if you can live with those omissions, you’ll find the Curve 8520 packs in plenty of other features.

The Curve 8900 is BlackBerry’s slimmest full-QWERTY smartphone yet, measuring just a hair more than half and inch thick. Its case is black with chrome-colored edging, making it look a lot like the BlackBerry Bold. The 8900 is slightly smaller than the Bold, though, measuring 4.3 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide.

The screen measures 2.4 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 480 by 360–that’s even higher than the resolution of the Bold’s display. I used to think the Bold’s screen was the best I’d ever seen on smartphone, but not anymore. The Curve’s screen is gorgeous, displaying crisp graphics and bright colors. Everything from text to streaming video looked great.

The keyboard is small, but I still found thumb typing easy. The phone is light, too, weighing just 3.9 ounces.

The Curve 8900′s small size and light weight make it comfortable to hold next to your ear, and I found voice quality to be very good. The Curve 8900 is a quad-band GSM phone; that means you’ll be able to make voice calls in many countries outside the U.S.

You also can make voice calls over Wi-Fi networks, in addition to over cellular networks. This can allow you to make voice calls in places where you have a wireless network, but the cellular coverage is spotty.

The included BlackBerry browser is excellent: It displays Web pages just as you would see them on a computer screen, and lets you zoom in and out easily.

The 8900 supports both Wi-Fi networks and EDGE data networks, but notably missing is support for a true 3G network like HSDPA. That means you’ll have to rely on the availability of a Wi-Fi network for high-speed data access.

Like all BlackBerry phones, the 8900 is a messaging champ. It will support 10 personal or business e-mail accounts, and setting them up is a breeze. Several instant messaging applications, including AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger, come pre-installed. You also get support for text and multimedia messaging.

The Curve 8900 runs the updated version of the BlackBerry OS that we’ve seen on the Pearl Flip, Bold, and the Storm — and that’s a good thing. And, like those phones, the Curve 8900 has the DataViz Docs To Go editing suite preinstalled. And you can use the Curve 8900 to access BlackBerry App World, where you can browse through and download software applications directly to your phone.

The included 3.15-megapixel camera has auto-focus, a flash, and digital zoom, and it captured some great snapshots. You also get support for stereo Bluetooth and built-in GPS, as well as a decent–though basic–audio and video player. Video clips look great when played back on the Curve’s screen, though.

Key features:

2.4″ 65K-color TFT landscape display with a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels

Comfortable four-row full QWERTY keyboard

Quad-band GSM support

Wi-Fi

BlackBerry OS v4.6

Trackball navigation

Built-in GPS and BlackBerry maps preloaded

3.15 MP autofocus camera, LED flash

512 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM

Hot-swappable microSD card slot

Good build quality

DivX and XviD video support

Compact body

Good web browser

3.5 mm audio jack

Nice audio quality

Smart dialing

Conclusion : Overall, I was really impressed with the BlackBerry Curve 8900. It could benefit from 3G connectivity, but even without it, this is one of the best smartphones I’ve seen.

It’s looked like the Bold at first, but upon closer inspection, the Tour is quite dissimilar. The dimensions are all just a bit different, with the width of the Tour being the most noticeable. At 2.4 inches wide, the Tour fits perfectly in a pants pocket without feeling bulky, but surprisingly the screen is a higher resolution on the Tour than the Bold (480 x 360 vs. 480 x 320).

The Tour features lock and mute buttons in familiar places on the top of the handset, a gunmetal bezel, chrome accents separating the rows of the full QWERTY keyboard, and a chrome camera button, volume rocker, and voice command key. We would have liked to see a standard mini-USB output for charging, though. Enough with every phone having a different receptacle!

We liked the rubberized back cover of the Tour, too. Its grippy surface means you won’t have to worry about dropping the device when taking it out of your pocket, and it feels comfortable in your hand. The inclusion of a standard 3.5mm headphone jack was music to our ears, but the mono-speaker on the handset wasn’t; For voice it was decent, but we had to use headphones for listening to music via the included 2GB Micro SD card or the free Pandora and Slacker Internet radio apps.

RIM smartly changed the color of the trackball to that of what the Bold’s commonly looked like after a few months of use: black. Strangely, the trackball became stuck during our tests, thus making navigation impossible until we cleared whatever it was that was stopping movement.

The keys on the Tour are soft, with a raised edge on them much like a laptop keyboard, making it easy to type out an e-mail, instant message, or text with few mispressed keys. A raised dot on the combination D/5 key gives a centering point for your thumb when dialing the phone without looking. The only gripe we had with the keyboard is that the backlight bleeds through the spaces between rows of keys, making the Tour look on the cheap side.

As is the case with other BlackBerry devices, setting up our e-mail account on the Tour was a breeze, and we were sending and receiving e-mails within minutes of initially turning the device on. The Tour also supports up to 11 e-mail accounts, ten of them being personal and one being a BlackBerry address. We found ourselves using the BlackBerry e-mail client more often than not when compared to the available Gmail app for a number of reasons. PDF attachments displayed correctly, images and all, rich text HTML e-mails displayed correctly, and it was generally faster at receiving e-mails too, usually by ten minutes. The only gripe we had was that e-mail conversations with the same sender don’t stack, meaning that a series of messages between you and another person appear as multiple messages instead of one that becomes progressively longer.

In addition to Word to Go, Excel to Go, and PowerPoint to Go, the Tour features the BlackBerry App World.

The 3.15-megapixel camera squeezed into the tour is impressive, especially when considering the lackluster image quality of previous BlackBerry cameras. Even when taken at full resolution of 2048 x 1536, images were incredibly sharp. There are multiple settings for flash output, white balance, and image size. The Tour also features video recording capabilities with a 2x zoom.

It’s a shame that RIM didn’t include Wi-Fi on the Tour, but when Internet speeds are this fast, we barely missed it.

Voice quality was excellent as well, even in rural areas, which are usually torture tests for any mobile phone service.