The BlackBerry Tour 9630 (Courtesy: Verizon Wireless)

If you’re a Verizon user and were in the market for a new smartphone, there’s a good chance you had your eye on the BlackBerry Tour 9630.  Verizon sent a review unit over and gave me unlimited use with it.  The Tour fits the BlackBerry mold quite well, pairing with the other devices in RIM’s portfolio nicely.  There are some features missing, but for those not looking for a device with everything, the Tour could be a good fit.

When comparing a BlackBerry to all of the other BlackBerry’s, it’s important to note that for the most part, they’re in the same ballpark sizewise.  The Tour measures 4.4″ x 2.4″ by 0.6″ and weighs 4.58 ounces.  Compared to the Bold (the BlackBerry with the best keyboard experience in my opinion) it’s a touch smaller and lighter (The Bold measures 4.48″ x 2.6″  x 0.59″, 4.8 ounces).  For those looking to go even smaller there’s Curve (4.29″ x 2.36″ x 0.53″, 3.87 ounces) and the Pearl (4.2″ x 1.97″ x 0.55″, 3.4 ounces).

The Tour was not uncomfortably large or small, it fit in my pocket without being uncomfortable.  More importantly, it fits in my hand (which is pretty medium).  I didn’t have any problem with the keyboard, which is in my estimation the most important aspect of a smartphone and something each person has to try out for themselves.  It’s important that your thumbs can press the keys and that you can type on the device you own.The Tour was not uncomfortably large or small, it fit in my pocket without being uncomfortable.  More importantly, it fits in my hand (which is pretty medium).  I didn’t have any problem with the keyboard, which is in my estimation the most important aspect of a smartphone and something each person has to try out for themselves.  It’s important that your thumbs can press the keys and that you can type on the device you own.

I own a Palm Pre, which suits me well, but as I’ve said in other reviews for woodtv.com, BlackBerry makes the best QWERTY keyboards.  Like other BlackBerrys, the keys on the Tour have a hard plastic touch to them. Compared to the rubbery feel of the Palm Pre, the hard plastic makes typing easier.  One part where the BlackBerry could take a hint from the Pre keyboard is with the dedicated “.” and “@” buttons the Pre has.  You’ll have to hit the alternate button to type in a “@” on the BlackBerry, which for most people isn’t that difficult, but if you are a heavy Twitter user and you’re constantly having @ conversations, it’s a nice feature to have.  The lack of a dedicated period key is made up for in the software.  While typing on a BlackBerry if you double tap the spacebar, it will automatically insert a period.  It’s nice for typing sentences on a text message or in an email, but for typing out websites it’d be nice to have a dedicated “.” key. Even without those two keys, the Tour keyboard is phenomenal. It proves, yet again, that BlackBerry makes the best cell phone keyboards.

That keyboard makes for a fantastic experience for email and text messaging. Really, that’s the strong suit for any BlackBerry device. Syncing email addresses, even ones with Exchange encryption needs, is no problem.  On the Pre,  there were a certain number of hoops I had to jump through to set up the security protocols for my work email, but on the Tour, and any other BlackBerry for that matter, there are no hoops.  Punch in the address and the password and the software takes care of everything.

I had no problems with audio quality on voice calls.  I’m in a pretty good coverage area for Verizon and pretty much exclusively was on the 3G network.  You’re always going to want to check it out for yourself though.  I’m covered at work, home and most everywhere I would want to go on my personal cell phone and it’s important when buying one that you do the same.  Definitely use that grace period providers give to go to the places you think you’ll use the phone.  Otherwise, when you get up to your favorite vacation spot for the summer, you’ll be disconnected (which some people say would be the point of a vacation).

RIM has consistently delivered quality cameras on the BlackBerry line.  The Tour is no exception.  It sports a 3.2MP sensor with a flash.  While 3.2 is becoming more common for cell phones, there are still plenty that sport a smaller, 2.0MP sensor and lack a proper flash.  The Tour’s camera has an auto focus, image stabilization, 2x digital zoom (which I would advise against using, because its not optical) and geo-tagging functionality.  The Tour is also capable of video recording, which is a nice added feature.

You’re not going to run out of storage space on the Tour, unless you take copious amounts of pictures, have an immensely large music collection that you have to take on your cell phone, or if you have a lot of compatible video.  This is because the Tour sports an upgradeable MicroSD slot.  The Tour ships with a 2GB card included, which is decent enough, but it can be upgraded (neither Verizon or BlackBerry’s websites list a maximum size, but I’d imagine it to be 8 or 16GB).

Storage may not be an issue for most, but it must be said, the Tour is not an iPod.  Its media player, like most BlackBerry offerings, is decent but not groundbreaking.  The media sync manager is a great way to integrate your device with your iTunes library and you shouldn’t have to worry about access getting cut off by an iTunes update because RIM programmed things above board, versus the Pre which gets access in iTunes currently by pretending it’s an iPod.  The Tour has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which while becomming more common is still a big plus.

The Tour is not a touchscreen device, navigation is accomplished through the trackball.  While the trackball is certainly capable, I’d like to see the screen respond to touch.  Multitouch gestures make navigation more user-friendly.  Still, if you’re used to it, the trackball is good enough, and for BlackBerry users, it’s probably even preferred.  While not being a touchscreen, the LCD is packed with pixels. It measures 2.4″ and has a 480×360 resolution.

The Lithium Ion battery powering the Tour is clocked at 1400 mAh and claims 5 hours of talk time and 14 days of standby time.  While testing out the phone, I didn’t run into battery life problems and the phone made it through the day without a hitch.

One big issue I had with the Tour was its lack of WiFi.  Now, if you’re not concerned about connecting to your home or office network, this won’t be an issue for me.  Personally, I’d much rather use a WiFi connection for data than a 3G network.  But I would say that it would only be a deal-breaker if the coverage in your area isn’t up to par.

The lack of WiFi isn’t a huge deal though, because the browser is awful.  Consistently, the BlackBerry browser under performs.  It loads pages with some quickness and there aren’t hanging problems or loading issues.  That being said, in a world where there is the Safari Mobile and WebOS browsers available for other devices, the BlackBerry Browser comes up painfully short.  But the Tour isn’t alone in that sense, if the gold standard is on the iPhone and Pre, then no one else even competes.  Essentially, this is because Mobile Safari and the WebOS browser take advantage of WebKit. Without getting too technical, WebKit allows both browsers to do things that other cell phone browsers cannot.  It renders pages faster, and is really what’s behind the advertising shtick of “the real internet” that Apple used.  The lack of a touchscreen also hurts the browser.  In testing the Tour, I found myself wanting to flick to scroll on the page, but had to use the trackball, which was not intuitive.  The browser itself, I don’t have too many issues with, but it’s just not as broad of an experience that is offered by the competition.

When it comes to apps, RIM has the App World. Its growing catalog of apps range in prices from free to expensive. It joins the ranks of the Android Marketplace and Palm Pre App Catalog but none of those approach the breadth of the Apple App Store.  The important thing to me though, is that the companies are trying.  Apps are getting from developers to users.  There may not be as many apps as are available in other marketplaces, but its at least functional.  There’s a Facebook app and a Twitter app, for those who have to stay constantly connected to their social networks.  There are games that are available for the people who have to be entertained while on a work break.  Apps are available, and there are getting to be more of them.  That’s a good thing.

As I said at the outset, the Tour isn’t the most fully-featured phone that RIM has ever released. It still has shortcomings because of the browser, but there are bright spots to point to.  The App World gets bigger with every successive BlackBerry I test.  The Tour ends up being a great smartphone, but that’s where the line is drawn.  You’re good to get your email, text and picture/video messages, and make phone calls. But It’s not going to challenge the iPhone or the Pre in terms of entertainment.

The BlackBerry Tour is available right now for $149.99 with a 2-year contract from Verizon.  It’s also included in the buy one, get one free promotion they’ve been running recently, if that suits you.

Have any questions or comments? Shoot me an email at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com or send me a message on twitter, twitter.com/mattschuler.