With the very recent launch of the BlackBerry Torch, there came a general consensus throughout all of its reviews. The BlackBerry Torch was good, but not good enough for today's competitive smartphone market. It's certain the best BlackBerry by far, but apparently that's not good enough. Is this all that RIM can serve up for us? Is this the end for the BlackBerry as we know it?

Die-hard fans of BlackBerry will say no. There's quite a plethora of them too. People that still use a BlackBerry obviously has a reason. As more and more smartphones adapt a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard, there will always be some people who prefer BlackBerry's highly praised physical keyboard. Plus, BlackBerry is considered great for email and messaging. There's also the BlackBerry App World which offers a fair selection of downloadable apps. So what's wrong? This seems like a pretty decent phone, right?

The BlackBerry Torch is RIM's new flagship device and it still has a sluggish processor, a very low resolution display, a nicely updated OS that can sometimes miss the mark, and an under-saturated camera with VGA video recording. It's beginning to become unclear whether or not this device was meant to compete with the top smartphones out there today such as the iPhone 4 or HTC EVO 4G or even the Samsung Galaxy S series. It certainly took a while for RIM to pipe out this much of a phone, and most people can agree that it's definitely not up to par with today's best offerings.

I think that this may be the end of BlackBerry -- for consumers. Consumers have so many better options than a BlackBerry. They have the iPhone, they have a fantastic selection of Android handsets, I'll even go as far as to say that they also have Windows Phone 7 coming out soon and that does have potential. I think that businesses and enterprises will still embrace their BlackBerrys because it's great for what they need. They need good email and good messaging and great battery life. Chances are they won't be playing Doodle Jump or Angry Birds very frequently. The problem is that RIM said the Torch is for the consumer market. If that's true, then they need to do better -- fast, before it's too late. And for many, RIM's chance at doing better has already come and gone.