Priced Rs 15,990, BlackBerry 9720 is an affordable Q

WERTY phone

 990
Specs: 2.8 inch capacitive touch with QWERTY keypad; 801MHz processor; 512 MB RAM; 512 MB ROM, 32 GB expandable storage; 5 MP camera; Bluetooth, Wi-Fi; 120 grams; 1450 mAh battery.
Rating: 4.5/5
Bag it or Junk it: Buy it if you need a keypad.

Nidhi Singal

With not many options remaining for people who do not want to use touch screens, BlackBerry has announced another keypad driven smartphone, the 9720. But this new phone is from the BB7 generation and not the new BB10.

The 9720 is a signature BlackBerry, but very light and comfortable to hold. The front has a 2.8-inch touch display as well as a QWERTY keypad. The removable back panel has got horizontal lines running all through giving the phone a good grip. There is a dedicated camera key on the right and another for BBM on the left. Despite having been on touch phones for long, it did not take me all that tough to switch back to the keyboard. Also, along with the very responsive touchscreen you have the navigation pad for scrolling. The phone uses a regular SIM card and not a micro-SIM.

Targeted as the mid-segment, the 9720 has the BlackBerry OS 7.1 , which now has a notification drop down tab below the time line. A row of icons popping from the bottom are labelled as 'All' that can be dragged up the access all the apps. Other tabs include media, frequent, favourites and download. The device comes preloaded with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.  There is a full version of 'Documents To Go' app that not only allows to read documents but to create and edit files. It also has a voice recorder, password keeper and BlackBerry Protect like before.

Despite the 806 MHz Tavor MG1processor and 512 MB RAM, the 9720 offered a snappy performance. The smartphone has got a 5MP camera onboard with various modes including face detection, portrait, sports, landscape, party, close-up, etc. but the images were just about average. The only downside is the 512MB internal storage which is way to less these days. Interestingly, this smartphone doesn't hog as much power as the new age smartphones. The 1450 mAh battery was good enough to last us a day and 

 

Birendra kumar

pgdm 3rd