On the phone's sides, RIM chose to use such a massive, gaudy chrome-look bezel that the only physical buttons it could fit are tiny ones offering little tactile feedback. To make matters worse, RIM crammed not one or two but three of these onto the right side of the phone -- volume up, mute and volume down. Below those you'll find a dual-stage dedicated camera button for the auto-focus camera. On the left side of the phone there's one lone microUSB port.
Switching over to the back of the device, the industrial design is spoiled by poor color choices, worse material choices and bad hardware placement.
As far as touch goes, it's pretty horrible. Let's start with the physical screen itself.
First off, there's no oleophobic coating on here, so grease and fingerprints get picked up very easily and are difficult to wipe off. But even worse than that is the material RIM used for the display -- it feels like cheap plastic and it doesn't allow your fingers to glide over its surface smoothly, at least not compared to other touch devices such as the iPhone 4 or Motorola Droid Bionic. It's another example of how RIM's poor R&D management has affected not just the types of products it makes, but their quality as well.
I do like the integrated lock/unlock button on top of the device, though.
A cost-cutting trimmed 2,000 jobs as RIM shifts focus to its new operating systems.
