RIM Announces BlackBerry Torch, “The Best BlackBerry Ever”

Research in Motion’s long, lumbering game of catch-up in the smartphone race is over–according to RIM, anyway. At an event in New York City this morning, the company uncrated its BlackBerry 6 operating system (see video embed below)–a major overhaul of the dusty BlackBerry OS–and the BlackBerry Torch, the first device to run it and, according to AT&T Mobillity CEO Ralph de la Vega, “The best BlackBerry ever.”

RIM’s (RIMM) first QWERTY slider, the BlackBerry Torch looks a bit like the Palm Pre and features a 5 megapixel camera, 8GB of internal memory (4GB flash and 4GB MicroSD) and a 3.2-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of…480×360! (No, I’m not kidding; apparently RIM’s answer to Apple’s Retina Display is the Cataract Display.)

BlackBerry 6 gives it a decent Webkit browser (finally) and some other features we’ve come to expect from modern smartphones: universal search, social networking integration, and the like. Also on-board, a Wi-Fi Music Sync feature that allows users to access their entire iTunes or Windows Media Player music libraries from the device. BlackBerry App World comes pre-installed and supports carrier billing through AT&T.

Price: $199 with a two-year contract with AT&T (T), the device’s exclusive carrier in the States. It hits stores on August 12.

Oh, the tagline for the Torch’s new ad campaign? “Less an evolutionary leap, more like a triple Axel.“