Welcome to the Phone Arena Video Review of the BlackBerry Tour 9630. The tour is a dual mode, CDMA and GSM phone—for launch on both Verizon and Sprint on the 12th and it’s also been—the Tour serves as a replacement to the Curve 8330.
Some of the new features include a different redesigned keyboard similar to what we’ve seen from the Bold. The styling is very reminiscent of the Storm and the Curve 8900. You have the Dark Chrome on the sides. In the top of the device, the housing wraps around. You have two flash buttons her, on the right, the mute and on the left, the lock. To the right, you’ll find a three and a half millimeter headphone jack, volume rocker, convenience key, a micro USB port. One the left, you simply find this single speaker and the other convenience key.
The size and feel of the Tour is very good. It’s a little bit wider than the Curve 8900 which we prefer but still feels fairly excellent in the hand. The keyboard is amazing. It’s the best we’ve used they have on a Blackberry which means it’s the best we’ve ever used. It’s very soft yet so responsive. Our only cause for concern is that because it is so soft out of the box, as it breaks in it may become too soft for some users. Still, this is just a concern and there is no real reason we believe this will happen.
We like the addition of the black trackball as supposed to the white one—purely esthetics, it definitely fits with the phone. The back of the device has a soft touch feel around the sides and then the glossy black in the middle. It has a 3.2-megapixel camera with LED flash. Unfortunately, the camera performance was rather poor especially for a camera with auto-focus and image stabilization. Still, most people aren’t buying this phone for the camera.
The software is 4.7, something we first saw on the Storm and as of yet haven’t seen on a non-touch device. There’s not a whole lot different here, to the novice user, it will look the same as 4.6. There are few minor things. For instance, this drop down menus are now shaded and other things like in the music player, we now see a little bit more information. All very minor tweaks and that’s our biggest complaint with the Tour and Blackberry in general for that matter.
The software just isn’t that too smart with today’s smartphones. It’s excellent in terms of stability. It’s excellent in terms of usability. However, it doesn’t have that wall factor. It doesn’t have an ease of use. It doesn’t have that—that will capture the general—the tour like any Blackberry is an amazing device for IT professionals and business professional alike.
It’s the recommended device for those types of users. However, Blackberry is definitely going after a more consumer market nowadays. And in order to do so, they’re going to need to completely revamp their software. It’s still hard to fault with the Tour though. It’s an amazing piece of hardware and definitely a much better keyboard than we’ve seen even on past Blackberries.
Blackberry fan boys will be in love with this device and rightfully so. Everything from the HVGA Screen to the updated keyboard to the new design, screen’s class and elegance, it’s a very compelling product. We just hope—doesn’t dig their self too much of a rat with this software.
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