Has Roy Furchgott been on extended leave?

Fellow apparently writes, when the mood strikes, I suppose, for the New York Times. Today, he has a review of the Blackberry Torch.

The new BlackBerry Torch 9800 may inspire a little envy of its own. It is the first BlackBerry with a true touch screen and the first with a slide-out keyboard. New features bring it much more in line with the rest of the market. For one there is the new operating system, BlackBerry 6. It has handy home screen shortcuts, much like those found on Android. Touch the top of the screen and a window shade menu comes down that lets you manage your network connections, set an alarm clock or alter your display, keyboard settings, security and more. Touching the home screen magnifying glass icon starts universal search.

The Torch also has home screens for media, downloads, frequently used apps and favorite apps that you see by sliding a finger sideways across the screen, as you would an iPhone. The phone has also updated its camera to 5 megapixels and added handy new controls like a geo-tag button, automatic and manual flash and lots of settings for specific kinds of photos like portraits, sports or night shots.

The sliding keyboard will delight anyone accustomed to the positive click of BlackBerry keys. Battery life appears to be good, in my short test of the phone I’ve only used two-thirds of the battery charge over several days.

But the phone is still behind the times in a couple of aspects. The screen doesn’t match the high resolution you get from the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy Amoled screen phones. The processor is slower than that of newer phones as well, although it ran smoothly enough. The app store is a disaster, so hard to browse that it is a painful experience. The Torch is also a blocky little thing, feeling weighty and thick in comparison to other new smartphones.

Pretty good, all in all. I mean, if you write for the Times you are required to prove  you are not a glowing fan boy. In my SMARTPHONE RANKINGS the Blakberry Torch scored a very respectable '30'.