BlackBerry Tour 9630 (Sprint)

Call quality: We found call quality on the BlackBerry Tour relatively clear. Plus, it’s easy enough to adjust the cell phone’s volume with the corresponding buttons on the side of the Tour. We also appreciated the built-in speakerphone , however, there were a few occasions where we wished it was a little bit louder. Additionally, there was no degradation in call quality when we used a Bluetooth headset.

Audio quality: The playback of music on the BlackBerry’s speaker is loud, we often had to turn down the volume. Though some songs did sound a bit tinny. However, listening to music through the included 3.5mm stereo headset was clearer. Additionally, the BlackBerry Tour supports stereo Bluetooth so if you prefer to go wireless, you can always listen to tunes via an optional Bluetooth-enabled stereo headset.

Menu/phone book: If you love the BlackBerry interface, you’ll be happy to learn the Tour sports the latest snazzy OS found on the BlackBerry Bold. Application icons really pop against the dark blue background. You can use the BlackBerry Sync software to easily sync contacts, calendar, and e-mail between your computer and the Tour. Additionally, you can also view and edit Word docs, Excel docs, and PowerPoint presentations on the smartphone. Also on board are preloaded mobile versions of Flickr, FaceBook, and MySpace. You can store as many contacts as your available memory will allow. Each entry can hold multiple phone numbers, e-mail addresses, birthday and anniversary information, a picture, web site URL, as well as a slot for both work and home addresses.

Maneuvering through the menu is fairly straightforward, simply scroll to the feature you’d like to access and select it by pressing down on the scroll wheel. The standard fare of BlackBerry applications are on the main screen, but you can still customize the look of the BlackBerry Tour interface. Another nice addition is the inclusion of the Profiles (ring settings) icon at the top left hand portion of the screen, so you can easily adjust the ringer. Syncing media – videos, music, and pictures – is also infinitely easier thanks to the Roxio Media Manager software for BlackBerry (see Music for more details). The BlackBerry Tour comes with a Micro-USB-to-USB cable so that you can connect it directly to your computer. Also, you can always use Bluetooth if your computer has that functionality.

Messaging: The reason most people buy a BlackBerry is for the messaging, and rightfully so; it really has perfected messaging, and it has a built-in spell checker , which makes sending messages easier. Even better, it’s extremely easy to set up multiple e-mail accounts (including work e-mail) on this BlackBerry. You can do it during the initial setup of the device by following the prompts on the screen. If you already have a BlackBerry e-mail account and are simply changing devices, you can upgrade the information in the BlackBerry Start menu. Plus the Tour has access to multiple IM applications (BlackBerry Messenger, AIM, Google Chat, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger) already loaded on the device. If you plan on using any of those IM clients a lot be sure to get an unlimited messaging plan since each message sent and received during an IM conversation counts as a single text message. Also, if you tend to receive a lot of graphic-intensive e-mails, opt for an unlimited data plan, as downloading graphics can quickly eat up megabytes of data.

Camera/video: The BlackBerry Tour has a 3.2-megapixel camera with a flash, but lacks a tiny mirror for snapping self portrait. Overall, picture quality is pretty good when snapping pics using the Tour and we’re happy to report it has a fast shutter. You’ll have no problem capturing candid moments with this camera phone. Plus it’s got auto focus so you won’t end up with a lot of blurred subjects in pictures. Colors are true and bright even when viewed on a computer and details are fairly sharp. Once you snap a picture, you can save it, rename it, save it as a Caller ID photo, delete it or send it. Camera features are a little skim, but you can adjust White Balance, Picture Size, Picture Quality, Color Effects (Normal, Black and White, Sepia, or Whiteboard), and GeoTagging. We’re glad to see BlackBerry left our favorite feature implemented: the trackball integrated with the camera application. It can be used to zoom. Sharing images are easy as well, you can upload pictures to services like Flickr, Facebook, and My Space to share pictures with people in your life.

Additionally, you can view and shoot videos on the cell phone. Shooting videos is pretty easy and the quality is acceptable. While it’s a nice feature to have, you’re probably going to enjoy watching videos you download or stream from the Internet. Watching video on this BlackBerry Tour is impressive. Video is smooth and colors are bright; ideal during long commutes on public transportation (with headphones, of course).

Music: As noted, the BlackBerry Tour 9630 has a music player. You can listen to songs stored in MP3, AAC (Apple’s audio format), and recent WMA (Microsoft’s audio format) formats. There aren’t many music-centric features included in the player, but it has the ones we’ve come to expect: Repeat, Shuffle, and Playlists (you can even create them on the fly – nice!). Plus, you can save tunes stored in your cell phone as a ringtone. The Tour comes with about 256MB of memory onboard and a 2GB MicroSD card, which should be plenty to get you started. Speaking of music, there’s also an application for Slacker radio installed, however, depending on your plan this may cost extra to use.

We still commend RIM for teaming up with Roxio to help you get music, photos, and videos from your computer onto the Tour. The software has an extremely intuitive user interface, so you don’t even need to read directions to get started. You can also use this software to turn CDs into MP3s. There’s even an option to sync it with your iTunes application and sync up existing playlists. Another nice feature is that the software won’t allow you to transfer music that the Tour won’t play back (that is, protected music that you might have purchased at an online store) onto it, so you’ll never have to wonder why a song isn’t playing. Instead, you’ll get a pop-up that says, “There are no media files in this folder that supports filter settings.”

Connectivity/Bluetooth/World Phone:You can do a lot with Bluetooth on this cell phone. Besides easily being able to connect to a Bluetooth headset (we found call quality was decent when we used the Plantronics Discovery 925), you can also use it to sync up with your contacts if your computer supports Bluetooth. We were able to easily connect to a MacBook Pro via Bluetooth. We should also note that the BlackBerry Tour is a true world phone with the ability to work on both GSM and CDMA networks. When travelling in GSM areas, you should be able to get a 3G connection if it’s available on the network you’re roaming onto.

Look and feel: The BlackBerry Tour with its slick black casing and shiny silver edges definitely makes it look well suited for busy executives. Its black rubberized backing just adds to the durability, especially for people who tend to throw the a BlackBerry down on hard desktops regularly. The real standout feature is its gorgeous display. Numbers and letters are crisp, while colors are vibrant. Yes, it’s viewable in direct sunlight as well. Since it’s so speedy you really would have no problem watching a movie on it. Although, the Tour has the popular track ball, it’s not white as is the case on the Pearl. Instead it’s actually a dark grey and it just feels more durable to the touch.

Looks-wise the BlackBerry Tour has all the keys expected. However the main keys are flush against the screen and only the QWERTY keys are slightly raised. There are other streamline design elements as well such as the lock-key and the mute key are simply icons concealed in the black shell at the top of the Tour. This BlackBerry isn’t completely smudge free, the screen attracts face grease and fingerprints. Though, they are only obvious when the display is dark. While the BlackBerry Tour accepts MicroSD cards, we should note that you will need to remove the back cover to access the card’s storage place. The good news is that you don’t have to remove the battery to swap out MicroSD cards.

Keypad:The BlackBerry Tour sports black raised keys with white letters/symbols. Keys representing the numeric keypad have the numbers written in red. The individual keys all have slightly rounded edges on one side of each key. This aesthetically gives the keypad a bit of a slicker look. Usability-wise we didn’t have a hard time with the keys. That said, if you have larger fingers, you may have a harder time mastering this QWERTY keyboard. While we were able to dial phone numbers with a minimal amount of misdials, we still wish the Alt key was on the other side of the keyboard away from the numbers, which would make it easier to access the numbers for other purposes.

We found battery life on the BlackBerry Tour 9630 impressive – even with Bluetooth activated. If you use the cell phone frequently to make calls, listen to music, as well as send/receive text messages and e-mail, this Tour will probably last about two to three days before recharging. However, if you consider the Tour primarily a cell phone and less of a messaging device, you’ll get about four or five days of battery life. We should note that listening to music a lot on the Tour doesn’t have an adverse effect on battery life. Plus you can charge the BlackBerry Tour when it’s synching with your computer.

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