Let us get the most obvious doubt out of the way. Why would BlackBerry come up with a mid-priced smartphone running their legacy 7.1 OS? Well, when they launched their OS10 devices earlier this year, they mentioned that the old BlackBerry 7 devices would continue to roll out for the old faithfuls who still prefer the QWERTY physical keypads in a world that has more or less completely shifted to the touch interface phones.
In a nutshell, with the BlackBerry 9720, the troubled Canadian smartphone makers are targeting possibly those who live on the fringes of the digital revolution. If you are the one that goes “Dude, save me all your techno mumbo jumbo, just get me a phone that has basic functions and is primed for the rigours of daily life,” then the BlackBerry 9720 is worth checking out.
The company has stopped using the ‘Bold’ and ‘Curve’ branding that went with their QWERTY phones. This phone looks a lot like the BlackBerry Q5 that runs the OS 10. The phone features a 2.5-inch touchscreen with the classical BlackBerry Split Keyboard with dimensions similar to Bold 9000 and the Q5. It is powered by an 800 MHz processor and has 512 MB of RAM that easily handles whatever the OS 7.1 is capable of throwing at it.
It features a very basic 5 MP camera and does not come with an LED flash. So it can shoot basic photos but this should do for people who are not really keen on too much photography. The battery on the phone is 1450 mAh and lasts an entire day, something that other smartphones can’t compete with.
On the Apps front, there really is not a glorious selection of Apps available on the BlackBerry App Store. But then again, this phone is just not for those kinds of smartphone users.
