BlackBerry 10 Complete Review
BlackBerry’s first BlackBerry 10 powered smartphone, the Z10, is slowly working its way around the globe. Starting off on sale in the UK, before heading into Canada and now into the US, the handset is eagerly awaited not just for the new operating system, but also because it represents either the next generation of BlackBerry hardware or a ‘Hail Mary’ pass deep into the consumer market.
Having had a BlackBerry Z10 review unit for two days now, what follows are my impressions of the Z10, with a detailed review to follow next week.
Hardware
There’s nothing surprising at all on offer in terms of chips – the Z10 runs on a 1.5 GHz dual-core processors. US models will have Qualcomm chips for LTE support, while my EU unit has a CPU from Texas instruments, giving it 4G capability on the networks here in the United Kingdom. There’s 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of internal storage, with microSDXC support for additional storage.
BlackBerry has made a lot of fuss over the camera software, and with an 8 megapixel shooter for images and 1080p video it certainly matches the expected specifications of a top end smartphone. Notably the forward facing camera is rated to shoot 720p video, which is going to be of interest for people who make heavy use of video calling , or self-shot videos.
Well, it's finally here. Sort of. It's been a long and winding road for BlackBerry 10, and as has been RIM's way, the company continues to out new BB10 details just a bit at a time. As you may recall, we got a good look at RIM's original Dev Alpha hardware back in May, and were able to swipe our way through a good bit of BB10 a month later. It's BlackBerry Jam time now, though, and RIM gave us a more thorough look at the OS than ever before, and we got to see it running on a new Dev Alpha B handset. We couldn't pry loose any details about the hardware inside the new dev phone (other than it's got a BB10-standard 1280x768 screen), but we did get a few fresh facts about the software running on it. Once again, RIM reminded us that the software we saw was not the final version, but that shouldn't deter you from reading on past the break and seeing a video of BB10 in action.
The UI remains largely unchanged from our previous encounters, though there are a few previously unseen highlights. It's still a three-element UI, with a central home screen showing running applications, an app grid, and the BlackBerry hub -- a feed of time sensitive notifications from email, calendar, BBM, social apps and more. The home screen hosts a maximum of eight active updating apps. Thanks to BB10's QNX underpinnings, users can have many more applications running, but the home screen only shows the eight most recent "to deliver an optimum user experience" (translation: allowing more live tiles would prevent things from running smoothly). BlackBerry hub is accessible at any time from within any app using a two-stage gesture -- swiping up from the bottom of the screen lets you peek at your notifications, and swiping to the right drops you into the hub where you can interact with those messages. It also bears mentioning that users can deal with the alerts from the feed directly within the hub, so no other apps need be launched to change a calendar appointment or reply to an email. Oh, and its API is wide open, so devs can tailor the hub to house notifications from any and all apps of their choosing.
BB10 also provides users with personal and work profiles, and has the ability to run apps from both simultaneously while keeping the data from each profile separate. That means that IT pros can set security parameters as strict as needed per corporate policies, but users still have the freedom to dilly dally at their time wasting websites of choice. Don't believe us? See BB10's split personality along with the host of newly revealed features in our video walkthrough. Oh, and you can also check out our liveblog for the full BB10 rundown.
BlackBerry 10 Gestures
Just as Microsoft presented a fresh look at how people interact with their phones, so has BlackBerry. The new BlackBerry 10 operating system is built around touch based gestures. By swiping your finger in from the edge of the screen you can perform various actions, such as bringing up the app-switcher and app-launcher screen, an extended menu of options, of take yourself to the BlackBerry Hub, which is where you will find a tailored list of all incoming communications and alerts.
In many cases this is the only way to reach a function, the Z10 has a distinct lack of buttons around the edges of the handset (volume, power, and camera) and there are no buttons at all on the face of the unit.
This is taking a fair bit of getting used to. Even with my experiences on an Apple track-pad and other touch screen smartphones, the unique nature of the gestures forces me to think about what I want to do. I’ll be taking note to see if this improves over time.
It certainly gives the Z10 something that is different, but as Microsoft has found out, sometimes your UI can be too different to be accepted. I think BB10 is less of a jump for iOS and Android users coming to the handset than say the Windows Phone 8 powered Lumia 920.
After The Gestures
One thing that has surprised me in my first day or so with the Z10 is the consistency of the UI, or the lack of it. Most of the time UI elements are in the same place, but there are moments when this does not happen. The left-most item in the lower menu bar generally shows up as a ‘back’ button, but it is not universally a back button. Other times this area brings up a list of folders or views for the user to choose from.
Out of the box BlackBerry 10 is not an easy UI to get used to. iOS is probably the king here, although both Android, and especially Windows Phone, have an internal consistency which helps new users along the way. My experience of the Z10 is that you will have some frustration over the first day trying to remember what swipe to do something, and where you’ll find the right menu options (on the right, on the lower menu bar, or in the additional settings choice in the top menu bar swiped in).
I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but it’s a steeper learning curve than I was expecting.
The Beloved Battery
The good news is that the Z10 battery is removable. The bad news comes in two parts. The first is that it’s only 1800 mAh, which is relatively small compared to other phones in the same category. Even the approaching one year old Samsung Galaxy S3 has 2100 mAh to play with and get you through the day.
The second is that BB10 is not as frugal with battery life as other operating systems, and while the BlackBerry team is aware of the issues of endurance, it’s not a top priority to address in any OS or firmware updates. The battery bar seems to drop rather quickly for me, and on the first full day ‘at the office’ I was looking to hook up to a microUSB charger rather quickly.
Being a Blackberry
Finally for this initial impressions, the Z10 does feel like a BlackBerry. By that I mean there’s a red LED that blinks whenever you have an incoming message. Times have moved on since email was King, but they still light up the LED. Twitter direct messages light it up as well. So do Facebook IM’s, mails in LinkedIn, and all your existing contacts from BlackBerry Messenger. That’s rather a lot of LED flashing and alert tones throughout the day.
BlackBerry 10 Pricing All over the world
Worldwide, we have several key markets that are revealing pricing and availability today, including the UK, Canada and UAE:
In the UK, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available beginning tomorrow on pay monthly contracts and pre-pay plans from EE, O2, Vodafone, Phones 4u, BT, 3UK and the Carphone Warehouse. BlackBerry Z10 smartphones will be available fully subsidized on competitive monthly pay contracts. Price points will vary according to carriers and retail partners.
In Canada, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available on February 5th. Pricing will vary by carrier partner, but it will retail for around $149.99 on a 3-year contract.
In the UAE, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available on February 10th. Pricing will vary by carrier partner, but unsubsidized it will retail for AED 2,599.
In the U.S. market, we expect availability with most carriers for the BlackBerry Z10 to be in March. Today, U.S. carriers will start announcing pre-registration and price plans.
Many of our global partners have already launched or will be launching pre-registration and pre-order sites today.
We expect the first global carriers to launch the BlackBerry Q10 in April. We will announce new pricing and availability information as carriers roll out around the world.
Price in India and Asia
According to a source, the device is likely to reach India in the next three to four days and the price quoted is around Rs. 40,000.
In that sense BlackBerry is back. Now to find the filters so I can turn some of them down!
Any questions or points you want comment your Points and your Blackberry experience.
Search tags : BlackBerry, BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry review, BlackBerry 10 review, BlackBerry US, BlackBerry indian price, BlackBerry price, BlackBerry sales, BlackBerry mobile, BlackBerry and i phone, BlackBerry software, BlackBerry problems, BlackBerry battery, BlackBerry India, BlackBerry user manual, BlackBerry market, BlackBerry 10 in India BlackBerry update, BlackBerry 10 update,
Comments
Post a Comment