Plemix

BlackBerry’s latest offspring is the less bold (but not necessarily a lessened Bold), more chic Tour 9630. Departing from the business smartphone specification, BlackBerry Tour 9630 is said to be more all rounded with some handy and useful applications and powerful entertainment and multi-media support. I think it’s high time we gave it a closer look now.

Among the bundle we can find the BlackBerry Tour 9630 phone, a battery, a charger, a data cable, a handsfree set, a CD-ROM and a user guide.

The device suggests a resemblance of Blackberry Curve 8900 (who went without 3G and HSDPA connection.) The 2.5-inch display is sharing the frontal with a full QWERTY key board, made sophisticated by the ever-sleek black. It feels less plastic-ish than Blackberry Curve 8900 though.

The Keyboard is satisfying. It is intuitive, nicely-spaced and not sappy at all, but I have problems still with the black trackball and it is too small for thumb-steering and too responsive to land at the right place (not so good a touring tool.)

The 3.5mm jack is a blessing for the enhanced media support (like iTune synchronization and omnipotent media format support just to name a few.)

The speakerphones are on stereo. They are loud and clear.

The back can live up to the high-end design of the phone. The camera is a 3.2MP one with auto-focus and image stabilization (better if there were a nicer flash)

It takes a little bit of hassle to remove the battery cover to get access to the MicroSD slot (expandable up to 8GB) and SIM card slot. It is compensated by a prolonged battery life.

The QVGA display is a crisp and bright one which allows appalling playback of videos and images.

You can locate your favorite hangouts with your GPS and Blackberry Maps on BlackBerry Tour.

I would say BlackBerry Tour is a nice attempt by the BlackBerry: a solid design and construction, HSDPA and enhanced media experience. Only that it lacks a well-performed browser.

BlackBerry Tour 9630 Video Review

# posted by plemix @ 9:31 PM