[TonyTone]

The Torch is a very good phone with a very bad rep.

But here's my overall ...

CONS
1 - It is way to easy to accidently engage the top lock button. It's in the same place where it exists on the 9700 but Rim has built it differently for whatever reason.

2 - The micro USB port is awkwardly placed at the near bottom left of the device. While charging or syncing at home, this is not really a big deal however, when charging in the car, it's hard to lay the device down in a good place where I feel comfortable enough that it wont fly around with the movement of my vehicle.

3 - The Torch, being a touch screen device, is cursed with fingerprint city. I'm constantly rubbing this thing down.

4 - The speaker volume is a bit of a compromise from my Bold 9700. It's still pretty good - just not as good.

PROS -
1 - With the already superior keyboard and trackpad combination, RIM has added the touchscreen as an addition to the method of input and it responds very well to the touch. I did experience some getting used to the on-screen key board but I found that, even in portrait mode, if I position both my hands a certain way (to hold the balance of weight at the top), input is much faster and more accurate. It's still not as success as the keypad, but with the Torch, the option is there.

2 - I think Rim's business plan with the 9800 was to make sure everything is available at the user's fingertips (quite literally). Well, they have succeeded. The universal search is an awesome convenience. Who needs menu after menu when you can simply type what want and it's right there. I want to play Brick Breaker? Then I simply type in b-r-i-c ... and before I can finish typing the whole word, there is the icon for that app (along with other possible options that the Torch suggests that I might have been searching for, including possible songs with those letters in the title, other apps or files with similar keywords in their titles, or even internet searches. I don't have to (if I don't want to) go to scroll through icons and folders and categories, YEAH.

3 - But it doesn't stop there. With the new Wi-Fi Sync feature, I can access and song on my computer and download it onto my device wirelessly. It's so great to have this function. Specifically, the desktop manager syncs my comupter's music with my 9800 - ALL OF THEM. The songs on my computer stays there but are listed on my device but they are gray'd out because they do not exist on my media card. Should I want to download a particular song on my device to listen to it, I simply press download ... TA DA. I can even hide all those gray's out songs by choosing "hide home music" from the menu option and only the songs that are on my device will be displayed.

4 - Hands down, the webkit browser experience is a much appreciated and long awaited improvement from all other Blackberry operating systems. I've heard that competing devices have browser and screen resolutions that are superior to the Torch's. That may be true but make no mistake. The 9800 screen is more than suitable for most of what I do every day (as I suspect the same is true with the average cell phone user). Even it's not better, it's certainly not a con and it's much better than previous Blackberries.

5 - I noticed by accident that when I look up a contact in my address book, at the bottom of their card, there is a rather long log of the most recent communication activity with that person whether it was a phone call, text message, or even BBM. That's a pretty nifty feature to be able to see that log and be able to recall those communications. FANTASTIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6 - The homepage design with all the alerts accessible at the top center of the screen is just a joy. I almost never go into the separate email/text/social media folders anymore. Everything is again at my fingertips and at a glance when I press that icon. The Torch even provides all the up and coming calendar events.

All those pluses and you should couple those with the small conveniences like the new social feed feature, the enhancements with better options to enter contact information, the sleek design, and the fact that it's still a Blackberry (which means that it's push email and security capabilities are the greatest out there and, unlike a notable competitor, there still something to be said about the removable battery and expandable storage).

You asked the question who loves their Torch, and I would have to say, I'm a HUGE fan. Despite what you may have read, this baby is a well oiled machine. Yes, it has some quirks but what device doesn't?