Blackberry Torch is now on Three

MOBILE OPERATOR Three has enthusiastically announced that it is selling the Blackberry Torch 9800.

On paper the 9800 sounds like a parody of a smartphone. It has a touchscreen and a slide out Qwerty keyboard, social networking applications, a fast Internet experience, Windows messenger, always on email and we assume that if you look hard enough you'll probably find a kitchen sink somewhere.

We had a look at the Blackberry Torch this month and were glad to find that Blackberry was not pranking us. Indeed the smartphone got a 7 pints rating, which is pretty good.

So, if you want to get your hands on one you can pop down to your Three store and take it up on its Torchy-feely not very cheapy deal. If you do you should expect to pay £250 for the handset and £35 a month for 2,000 free minutes, 5,000 free texts and 1GB of data.

Sylvia Chind, head of branded devices at Three looked up from Twittering her messages to Facebook to say, "When paired with Three's high speed network, the Blackberry Torch really comes into its own, allowing users to access their favourite web pages and social networking sites with ease."

While it had our attention Three also announced that it was offering the Blackberry Curve on a pay as you go deal.

Pay as you go deals are supposed to take the confusion out of monthly bills and make your mobile phone finances much easier to keep track of. Thanks then to Three for explaining its pricing options thus, "The BlackBerry Curve will be available on Three's recently announced All in One plan which gives you great value from £10 - 3,000 texts, 100 minutes and 500MB data: £219.99 including £20 top-up in 3 stores and £209.99 including £10 top-up on-line. Pay As You Go subscription to BlackBerry services then costs £5 and lasts for 30 days."

Okay then. µ