RIM's Blackberry was once upon a time "THE" business phone to have due to the useful messaging and email features that it offered. But with every other smartphone offering these features now, Blackberry phones seem to have lost their charm, and maybe feel a little out-dated. However, RIM is back in action with their new mobile phones platform, the Blackberry 6, which brings in some long due features and enhances some existing ones. The Blackberry Torch 9800 is going to be the first smartphone to feature this new OS. RIM has mentioned that the older Blackberry phones (like Pearl and Bold) will soon get upgrades too. Here's a brief overview of the Blackberry 6. You could also head straight down for a video on the Blackberry Torch:-

Touch friendly interface

RIM had always focused on making candy-bar phones, with a regular screen (non-touch) and keypad. The iconic Blackberry form-factor - candy-bar with QWERTY keyboard - has been very popular and aped by others in the industry as well. But with the current market trend being "touch-capable phones", with almost all other platforms (like iPhone OS, WebOS, Android and even Windows Phone 7 now) focusing on this, RIM had to buck up and get into the race. The Blackberry Storm 2, released last year is a touchscreen device. However, the platform it uses is not exactly touch-centric. The Blackberry 6 OS has been designed to be touch-friendly. It does allow integration of physical keyboards too. The Torch is similar in construction to the Palm Pre. The touchscreen panel slides vertically up to reveal the QWERTY keyboard beneath.

The homescreen on the Blackberry Torch looks almost similar to the ones on older Blackberry smartphones. However, the touch capability brings in some new aspects. Swiping right to left or left to right, takes you to other screens having categories like Frequent, Favourites, All, Media and Downloads. Like all other smartphone platforms, this new RIM platform allows re-arranging of icons as per the user's tastes.

A new Notifications bar sits on the top portion of the screen. This bar notifies you of the arrival of new messages, mails, IM, Tweets, calendar events and more. The bar gets populated with the icons of the respective notification. You can tap on any of these to enter the particular app directly.

The browser for the new platform is powered by Webkit, which also powers the browsers used in iOS and Android. Hence this new browser experience must be similar to that on the iPhones and the Droids. PCMag says that it offers desktop-style pages. Double tapping on a section on the web-page zooms into that particular section. Plus, content is arranged to fit the screen (auto text wrap zoom), so that the user does not have to horizontally scroll to read it. Pinching to zoom is as well supported. Web pages can even be opened in tabs. Thus, making browsing more simple. Other goodies that come along with the Webkit browser are support for HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and even Flash (a little later).

Another new touch here is the compression of data being downloaded. All data that is got from the web is said to be compressed 2 to 3 times to increase throughput downward. This should increase speed of download too. How this will practically fare, remains to be seen.

An app called Social Feeds offers a common place where you can read updates from your social networks like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, Blackberry Messenger and more. You can also stay abreast with RSS feeds from other sites using Social Feeds.

One more novel feature here is that you can update all your social network accounts at one go with this new platform. Time-saved. But not all might appreciate this feature.

Threaded messages with quick and easy ways to share photographs and videos is as well supported.

A new Podcast app has been introduced, which lets you subscribe for and download podcasts. There's a media player packed in the Torch, which according to Pocket-lint is similar to the Apple iPod app, wherein the user will be able to see his entire music collection without the tracks actually having to be on the device. Syncing with Windows Media Player is allowed too. Wireless music syncing over the same network with a PC is as well allowed.

Remember Palm's WebOS universal search? Blackberry 6 brings with it a similar kind of search where a user just has to start typing what he's looking for. The platform will automatically search for it locally (contacts, apps, messages, calendar) and also the web.

There does not seem to be much happening news on the online applications store and games front. PCMag states that apps purchasing billing will now be included in the carrier billing (Paypal was used earlier), which will make it easier for users. Credit cards can also be used.

Blackberry 6 has both exciting as well as some dull news. The touch-centric design, the web data compression, the multimedia features and the new browser are some of the noteworthy aspects. On the other hand, RIM might need to do some additional work on the online applications store and gaming front to make things attractive.

Find best mobile phone deals, latest mobile handset models and compare prices on leading mobiles in UK.