Critics’ Scorecard: Reviewers Love the BlackBerry Tour

Last week we finished up our review of the BlackBerry Tour, and decided to award the new Verizon Wireless smart phone 4 Stars and an Editor’s Choice rating. We appreciated its sharp new design, high resolution display, comfortable keyboard, and fast data speeds. It’s the best smart phone in Verizon Wireless’ lineup, despite a lack of Wi-Fi, an aging operating system, and a high-resolution display that forced us to squint while viewing full Web pages. Other sites have reviewed the BlackBerry Tour as well, and here’s a quick look at their opinions of the device. We will add more reviews as they are available, so stay tuned.

• Engadget Mobile thinks the BlackBerry Tour is “one of the most attractive BlackBerry devices ever made,” and preferred the keyboard of the phone over the original Curve 8300 series device currently offered by Verizon Wireless. The lack of Wi-Fi was a bit drawback for Engadget Mobile, and they also commented that they didn’t think the screen took advantage of the available real estate. In the end, Engadget Mobile says, “If you’re a CDMA user and plan to keep things that way, the Tour is definitely the best BlackBerry available.”

• PCMag gave the BlackBerry Tour an Editor’s Choice rating despite noticing a few bugs. The site found that two of its test units “suddenly stop[ped] being able to read their MicroSD memory cards, requiring a battery pull to fix the problem.” Another unit had a high pitched noise when it was turned on. Despite these small caveats, PCMag still thinks the Tour is the “best of the bunch,” offered by Verizon Wireless.

• CNET gave the Tour four stars, citing its “winning design and fast performance,” but the site also agreed with us in docking it for its lack of Wi-Fi. CNET also noted, “We’ve said it before,  but we’ll say it again. BlackBerry’s Web browser isn’t the best,” noting that it’s a bit frustrating to navigate around full HTML Web pages.
• Boy Genius Report noted that the device has a slower processor than the Bold, but thought the phone had excellent voice quality and claimed that it will be the “best BlackBerry on the market,” when it’s available. The site summed up the device pretty well by stating, “If you’re on  CDMA network (Verizon or Sprint) this is a no-brainer.”

It looks like most of the reviews, so far, are very positive. If you’re on the fence wondering whether this is the smart phone for you, head over to each review for the full story.