BlackBerry Torch now also available from MTN

MTN South Africa yesterday announced the availability of the BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone in South Africa.
“We live in an age where people want to connect to the Internet and their social networks at anytime and from anywhere. MTN is committed to ensuring it offers its customers innovative solutions that meet their diverse needs and communication requirements,” says Serame Taukobong, Chief Marketing Officer at MTN South Africa.

The new BlackBerry Torch features an exciting combination of a large capacitive touch screen and optical trackpad with a backlit slide-out BlackBerry keyboard, designed to feel optimally balanced when opened for typing. It also offers support for high-speed 3G (UMTS/HSDPA) networks around the world, includes the latest generation in Wi-Fi (b/g/n) connectivity and built-in GPS for location-based applications and geo-tagging. Its 5 MP camera takes exceptional pictures with continuous auto focus, image stabilization, scene modes and zoom, and it also supports video recording.

In addition, it comes with a combined 8 GB of media storage out-of-the-box, and includes a microSD/SDHD memory card slot that can bring the total storage memory to 36 GB for customers that want more.

The BlackBerry Torch is the first to launch with BlackBerry 6, a new operating system for BlackBerry smartphones. It features a redesigned interface, and a new and rich WebKit-based browser that renders HTML web pages (as well as HTML email) quickly and beautifully for a great browsing experience. The browser includes tabs for accessing multiple sites simultaneously, pinch to zoom and an auto-wrap text zoom feature that can intelligently wrap text in a column while maintaining the placement of a page’s key elements (simply double-tap on the BlackBerry Torch).

BlackBerry 6 features a redesigned interface that seamlessly works with the touch screen and trackpad, includes expanded messaging capabilities with intuitive features to simplify the management of social networking and RSS feeds (Social Feeds), and provides integrated access to the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and various instant messaging applications available on the BlackBerry Torch smartphone. Its enhanced multimedia experience rivals the best in the industry and includes a dedicated YouTube app and Podcasts app. A universal search feature allows users to search for content on the smartphone, as well as extend the search to the Internet or to discover applications on BlackBerry App World™, which is included and now supports credit card payments.

The BlackBerry Torch smartphone is expected to be available from MTN South Africa in mid-October through all MTN outlets and on all MTN price plans. For more information visit www.mtn.co.za or www.blackberry.com/torch.