Until now, BlackBerrys have pretty much looked the same – whether they had a keyboard, touchscreen and keyboard or whatever, you could still pick the BlackBerrys out of a line-up of mobile handsets. So, if you’re after something that stands out from the crowd, you wouldn’t be picking up one of RIM’s handsets – but that has just changed with the introduction of the Blackberry P’9981, which has been designed by Porsche. That important point not only changes how the phone looks, but it also affects the price – taking it to an eye-watering £1,275.

Looking good

As we have come to expect from RIM, the handset is terribly well made, and Porsche has given it an industrial look that just oozes class, price – and testosterone. It has a retro-look, metal, squared body, as well as a luxurious leather back cover, which we found was easy to take off, and yet still felt very sturdy.

Below the 2.8inch touch display are five buttons, which sit flush to the screen. Navigation is simple for Blackberry connoisseurs – and you have the usual keyboard, but this time it comes with flat metal keys, which feature a groove at the bottom to help the typing experience, and to display the alternate symbol for each key. It’s still efficient and comfortable to use, although we did find the keys were a little heavier than on your average BlackBerry.

Under the chassis sits the same processor as that in the Bold Touch 9900. The body itself is weightier than the 9900, at 155g (the 9900 weighs in at 130g) and it’s a tad bigger too, measuring 115x67 x11.3mm.  

Porsche performance? 

The handset runs on the BlackBerry 7 operating system, and Porsche has taken its design tweaks to it, making the icons flatter and more retro looking. While we really like the look of them, in actual fact they are harder to read.

Like Porsche’s cars, the Blackberry P’9981 is speedy – even if you have as many as 10 programs open at the same time. Generally, performance was excellent, and the browser is fully-featured, offering full HTML support, clear pictures and an address bar that also acts as search field. But we were disappointed by the lags in performance we experienced quite regularly.

The browser in particular suffered from freezing (lags lasted for no more than three seconds) but we found other apps also had this issue. It’s a shame when you’re using such a high-end, designer handset.

Snapper 

At well over a thousand quid, we’d have hoped that one thing that might have changed is Blackberry’s mediocre camera, but unfortunately that’s not the case. The shutter clicks before the image is taken, so you end up with blurry images. They also suffer from a lack of true colour in all but the most perfect of lighting conditions, and the flash overexposes your subjects.

Battery life too, was a disappointment, as RIM’s handsets are well known for their long life – but here you’ll only get around 12 hours out of a fully charged battery – fair enough it’s about standard for a smartphone, but it’s shocking compared with some of the older BlackBerry handsets.

Email

Happily, the email offering is top-notch. It offers desktop-like inbox capabilities and there is also a universal hub for all your messages, whether they’re from Skype, Facebook or the office. Twitter and Facebook apps are already on board – and Facebook is particularly well integrated – you’ll see your calendar and friend profile pictures included.

Our conclusion

This is not the first time designer labels have appeared on smartphones – Ferrari, Prada and Armani have all tried their hand at mobile handsets – but Porsche has managed to hit what would be its target audience, by choosing to give a BlackBerry the designer treatment, rather than any other handset. No one could ever really say it is actually worth the price, but if you’re a banker who has a need for speed, this is the sort of phone you’ll probably want.