Research in Motion (RIM) launched new flagship smartphone – Torch 9800 – and also refurbish operating system – BlackBerry 6 – in order to tackle the iPhone and Android devices.

However, the cellular device analyst believed the move was not sufficient enough to compete and bring it ahead of its rivals.

The Torch is hailed as “the world’s first smartphone to combine a BlackBerry keyboard with a full touchscreen experience,” while RIM also touts the ability to search any application, media content or contact by typing a word in Torch’s ‘universal search’ function. The smartphone is also the company’s first offering to come with BlackBerry App World pre-installed, supporting operator billing. It comes with a 5-MP camera with a flash and built-in GPS for location-based applications, although its processor (624MHz) is not as powerful as some Android 1GHz smartphones. Meanwhile, the new BlackBerry 6 platform offers an inbox where users can access updates from social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in the same place as their emails.

Online publication SlashGear noted that “there’s a sense that the BlackBerry Torch 9800 would have been a sure-fire hit if it had been released 12 months ago… Given the state of the smartphone market, while the Torch is certainly sufficient to keep existing BlackBerry users within the RIM family, we’re not convinced it’s enough to cause Android and iPhone users to defect.” NPD analyst Ross Rubin said that although the product does not represent a “leap forward,” it will help RIM better compete with rivals: “This gets the experience competitive again – if they can do that with the efficiency and stability that RIM is known for, then it’s a positive.”