Name: 9720
Brand: Blackberry

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Internet and camera

Internet

The stock browser on the BlackBerry 9720 is adequate. When you load it up you'll see the address bar at the top and you'll find bookmarks and history below.

Unfortunately, the address bar is just that; you have to enter the exact address of a website if you want to get there, it doesn't have any search function built in. You can add bookmarks easily and it supports tabbed browsing. We added more than ten tabs and it functioned, although it did obviously slow down a lot.

In terms of speed it's not lightning fast. With a strong Wi-Fi connection there's still some stuttering as you flick between tabs or load up a new web page. Moving onto 3G everything slows down significantly.

You definitely won't want to venture away from mobile version websites. It took about six seconds to load up the mobile version of TechRadar, but the desktop version wasn't ready to scroll for more than 30 seconds. Even with a decent Wi-Fi signal, that basic processor and the 512MB of RAM are going to keep you waiting.

Surfing the web is rendered less attractive still by the diminutive display. The pixel density, at 214ppi, is sharp enough to make text perfectly readable, but you just can't fit much of it on that 2.8-inch screen.

That means you have to scroll…a lot. Your choice is either the mouse cursor controlled by the touchpad or a finger on the touchscreen, which feels awkward when it's this small.

Keyboard shortcuts help the experience, so make sure you head into the browser options and enable them. You can also press the touchpad key to get extra options, including a zoom tool. It's great for images, but unfortunately there is no text reflow support, so you'll have to scroll if you want to read text.

There's no Flash support, but Java and HTML 5 will work just fine.

Navigation is generally slow, but the basic stock browser is fairly robust and easy to use. If you don't like it there are a few alternative options in the BlackBerry App World.

Camera

The BlackBerry 9720 sports a respectable 5MP camera with a single LED flash. The main rear-facing camera is all you've got, so there's no front-facing camera for video calls. The solitary 5MP shooter is on a par with rivals like the Samsung Galaxy Fame and the Nokia Lumia 520.

There's a dedicated camera button on the right spine or you can tap the camera icon on the touchscreen or press the touchpad button to take a photo.

The camera app has a reasonable range of features. There's a flash, support for geotagging, and a range of modes including face detection, portrait, sports, landscape, party, close-up, snow, beach, night, and text. It also offers 4x digital zoom and image stabilization.

It's easy to use and you can access all the settings on the touchscreen or by using the menu key. Your maximum resolution is 2592 x 1944 pixels, or about 5.7MP.

The big disappointment here is the lack of autofocus. It's a common feature now in smartphone cameras to be able to tap on the screen and choose your point of focus, but you can't do it on the 9720. You also won't find any white balance or exposure settings, and there's no gimmicky time shift, panorama, or even a burst shot.

Shutter speed seems to be pretty fast and, coupled with the fact that you can hold down the dedicated camera key and launch straight into the camera app, it's easy to capture spontaneous moments before they pass you by. You can also tap the menu key and share photos via email, text, BBM or social media.

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Video

The BlackBerry 9720 does have a video camera function, but it's only capable of capturing video at a maximum of 640 x 480 pixel resolution.

It supports the portrait, landscape, close-up, and beach scene modes, or you can just opt for auto. You can also turn on the flash to act as a weak video light and there's an image stabilization option.

To zoom in and out you swipe on the touchpad. In theory, the video camera can capture up to 30 frames per second, but the videos we shot came in at between 26 and 29 frames per second.

The video quality is far from impressive and it struggles to deal with movement or changes in light and without image stabilization the video is terribly choppy. The camera can't deal with the transition from shadow into light. There's a lot of noise and pixellation.

When there's no change in the level of light it definitely copes better, but movement is still a problem and image stabilization does little to fix it. We would recommend you don't move when you use the video camera on the BlackBerry 9720.