BlackBerry Tour 9630 review
Expert Rating:
Customer Rating:
- good call quality
- Good display
- Lack of Wi Fi
- Keyboard not up to the mark
- Poor stereo headphones
All the Verizon subscribers can rejoice as they can experience one of the best smart phones that is BlackBerry Tour 9630. This device is a great combination of T Mobile’s BlackBerry Curve 8900 and AT&T’s blackberry-bold. The size of the phone is also somewhere between the curve-8900 and bold. The keyboard is smaller in size but it appears almost same as that of bold.
BlackBerry Tour 9630 - Call Quality
BlackBerry Tour 9630 features excellent quality of call. In any case, BlackBerry Tour 9630 is a phone and call is the prime feature of any phone. Thus, BlackBerry Tour 9630 makes a good impact in this feature. One can talk as long as six hours non-stop over the phone and that is quite good. Though there is a bit of background noise that is heard during the call, but that is hardly noticeable and can be definitely ignored. Even calling over Bluetooth® in BlackBerry Tour 9630 is excellent.
BlackBerry Tour 9630 - Screen and Design
The appearance of the screen of BlackBerry Tour 9630 is awesome. It almost seems like a plasma display covered with a glass lens. Get ready to experience of some sharp and rich colours within the 65,000 type of colour display provided by the device. BlackBerry Tour 9630 brings a resolution of 480 pixels by 360 pixels. Only thing about the screen of BlackBerry Tour 9630 that seems bit unmatched is the bezel around the LCD screen. Without that, the screen would have looked much more appealing. However, in every aspect BlackBerry Tour 9630 looks damn attractive. The solid black casing and slim design makes it an extremely adorable handset. It features full QWERTY keypad that is quite well suited with the overall design of the phone. Also, there is trackball navigation for more ease to the users. The dimension of BlackBerry Tour 9630 is 112 mm x 62 mm x 14.2 mm and its weight is 130 grams. Most importantly, the size and design of the phone makes it a perfectly pocketable device. Hence, it is convenient to carry.
BlackBerry Tour - 9630 Memory Feature
The memory feature of BlackBerry Tour 9630 is impressive too. The internal memory capacity of the device is 256 megabytes, which is quite capable enough to maintain the phonebook and other phone-based features like photocall and call records. There is also microSD™ (TransFlash), microSDHC card slot that can expand the memory of the phone up to 8 gigabytes. This is quite good when there camera, video and downloadable games.
The Keyboard of BlackBerry Tour 9630
Excellent examples of blackberry keyboards would be that of bold and curve-8900. In fact, blackberry-bold’s keyboard is the better in the lot. Typing on those keyboards can be done is a faster way and almost accurately. But, coming back to the keyboard of BlackBerry Tour 9630, it is not that comfortable. The accuracy of typing with blackberry-bold is much better than that of BlackBerry Tour 9630. Also, there is no separation of the keys as it is there in the curve-8900. Only saving factor about the keyboard of BlackBerry Tour 9630 is the trackball, which is quite smooth and sensitive.
The Hardware Feature
BlackBerry Tour 9630 is just like the blackberry-storm including a QWERTY keyboard. It’s that exact. It features the cell radios of quad band GSM, GPRS and EDGE and single band UMTS, HSDPA and 1X/EVDO. One major limitation of BlackBerry Tour 9630 is that it does not feature Wi Fi. In spite of all the perfect hardware and network features, absence of Wi Fi indicates an evident hole.
Browsing on the BlackBerry Tour 9630
The browser in the default form of the phone zooms into web pages faster than previous editions. It is not known whether it is going to remain like that or it is just for the time being. It is quite exasperating factor. This zooming effect makes text appear huge and images look small. Moreover, the links cannot be clicked directly with a mouse pointer, the user needs to go to the menu option and then click "get link", which is quite a time consuming process. However, the browser is expected to work faster than EDGE.
The Camera and Video of BlackBerry Tour 9630
Tour is loaded with built in camera. This one is a 3.15 mega pixel camera with features like LED flash and auto focus. Both LED flash and auto focus ensures quality shots even in insufficient light conditions. Geo tagging feature is also included in the camera of Tour. The camera can also take video shots and play those files effortlessly in the video playback application. The video playback option is simple yet good. The display of the videos on the high resolution screen is perfect. Video playback is at par with the player of BlackBerry Curve 8900. The playback is capable of playing different video files such as MPEG4, WMV, H.263 and H.264.
The Music of BlackBerry Tour 9630
BlackBerry Tour 9630 is equipped with the media player that includes moderate features and simple usability. Music files can be arranged as per genres, albums and artists. Playlists and album arts are also supported that can be created by the users any time. Repeat and Shuffle are the other options of the media player. The player is compatible with audio formats such as MP3, WMA, WMA ProPlus, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+. BlackBerry Tour 9630 comes with a 3.5mm jack that means any headphone jack can be used to listen to good quality music. Tour itself includes stereo headphones, but its quality is very poor. It gives much better listening experience when other good-quality headphone jack is used.
BlackBerry Tour 9630 specification
- 3.2 Mega-pixel Camera with LED Flash, 2x Zoom, Autofocus, Image Stabiliser & Geo Tagging
- Video Recorder
- Video Player Supports WMV, H264, H263 & MPEG4 Formats
- Video Streaming
- TFT Display with 65k colours & 480 x 360 pixels
- Media Player supports WMA, eAAC+, AAC+, AAC & MP3 Formats
- Playlists & iTunes Synchronisation
- Microphone & Built-in Speakers
- Polyphonic, MIDI & MP3 Ringtones
- SMS, MMS & Instant messaging
- Email with attachments
- Predictive text messaging
- Downloadable Games & Built-in Games
- Personal organiser with Phonebook, calendar, Calculator, Clock, Alarm Clock & Sleep Mode
- QWERTY Keyboard & Keyboard Backlight
- Blackberry Maps™ & GPS Navigation
- Keypad lock with security password protection
- 256 Megabytes of memory with MicroSD™ memory card slot for up to 8 Gigabytes
- Bluetooth® with A2DP, 3G HSDPA & USB Connectivity
- EDGE & GPRS Technology
- Quad band 1900 GSM, 1800 GSM, 900 GSM, 850 GSM & UMTS 2100 Networks
- HTML Web browser
- Talk Time 5 hrs
- Standby Time 336 hrs
- Size 14.2 x 62 x 112mm
- Weight 130 grams
BlackBerry Tour 9630 consumer reviews
Read what other thought of the BlackBerry Tour 9630. Why not add you own BlackBerry Tour 9630 review by clicking the Add your Review tab above.Reviewed by Chuck Rogerß from Waterford, MI, US on Sunday, August 09, 2009
Rating:
Don't buy it 
I love my blackberry tour! I started off in blackberry land with the 8703e. I moved up with the Curve 8330 and then to the tour.
The idea that they are compatable with each other is wonderful! I love the idea that I can restore my back-ups from my curve right to my tour!!! I didn't loose any information!
The only thing that I miss is the availability of the themes for the tour! I love the idea of changing things up on my phone as I would like too.
Overall this phone is great! The pictures are crisp and look like they have been taken with a digital camera. If you can work a curve with no problem then you will have no problems with navigating through a Tour!
BlackBerry Tour 9630 Deals
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