Fire Sale for New BlackBerry Torch

Leslie Meredith, TechNewsDaily Senior Writer

17 August 2010 02:23 PM ET

Amazon and other online retailers have slashed the price of BlackBerry's new Torch smartphone by half to $99 with a two year contract. The Torch was BlackBerry's first and only new phone for 2010, launched just last Thursday.

Analyst firm Goldman Sachs today reported that the Torch's launch was "underwhelming," citing the phone did not sell out at retail locations and that most phones were purchased by customers who already owned a BlackBerry, according to the Street Insider.

The Torch was the first BlackBerry to feature RIM's new operating system, a system that was designed to compete with the iPhone OS 4. And unlike the iPhone , the Torch has both a virtual keyboard as well as a full physical QWERTY keyboard. But its 624-megahertz processor has 2/3 the speed of its 1-gigahertz Android competitors , and the Torch display is smaller and has lower resolution than both the iPhone 4 and Droid 2.

AT&T, exclusive wireless carrier for the BlackBerry Torch, lists the price at $199.99.