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| BlackBerry Z10. |
The BlackBerry Z10 is the first handset to
use the new Blackberry 10 Operating System (OS) and is a fully touch-screen device. It can be
viewed as the start of something new for BlackBerry. Something that they’re
hoping can bring them back among the top of the smartphone market.
Aside from having a full touch-screen, the
Z10 now also runs on a regular data plan, removing the Blackberry Internet
Service (BIS). Those who have always gotten confused with BIS versus the data
plan won’t have to worry about understanding that thing anymore (I remember
having to explain the difference of the data plan and the BIS to a lot of
people in the past).
So let’s check out what
this smartphone has to offer and if it can propel BlackBerry to the top.
Design and Functionality
I like the way how this handset was very
faithful to the design of the Playbook. It has the same subtle curved edge and
a soft matte finish. The back had the same rubbery texture as well, with a
silver Blackberry emblem in the middle.
It felt solid and light. One can easily
grip it. It didn’t feel cheap at all and its lightness doesn’t feel fragile,
unlike those other smartphones that I can’t seem to take
seriously because of their plastic properties.
The top side of the unit has the Power/Lock
button and the jack for earphones. The right side has the volume control
buttons that also function as media play, pause, next, screenshot buttons. You
can find the micro USB slot and the HDMI on the left side of the unit.
You can swipe from all sides of the bezel.
From the lock state, swiping from the bottom unlocks the phone. While your
phone is unlocked, swiping from the bottom (or flicking up) will also bring you
to your opened apps or multitask screen. Swiping from the top reveals the
settings and connectivity screen (you can also put the phone to sleep this
way). Swiping from the left shows the Blackberry Hub, Notifications, BBM,
Messages, your email accounts – all communication needs since it is after
all a business phone. It is only after you surpass the multitask state that you
can swipe to the right and see the menu for all your apps.
This swipe-from-all-sides thing was a
little hard for me to get used to and at times it was frustrating. I guess in
time, you’ll eventually get the hang of it. If you’re a Playbook
user, it’ll probably be easier to learn the gestures.
Display
The 4.2-inch LCD display was bright and
very rich. It was beautiful to look at and to browse with, especially because
the display is just the perfect size for me. It didn’t feel like it
was cramped up nor was it too big to use. I can’t help but to
remember the beautiful display of the Playbook. Watching HD videos is enjoyable
with this smartphone. With HDMI, you can easily watch your videos (or give a
presentation) on the big screen.
Touch-screen
I’m not much of a fan of the Blackberry not
having a physical keyboard. To me, a physical keyboard and the Blackberry just
goes hand in hand. Since most of the smartphones nowadays are full-touch
screen, I can’t say that the Blackberry Z10 did a bad job with the full-touch
keyboard.
The word suggestions were accurate and
although at first I wasn’t too keen on the idea of having word
suggestions (I’m not one for predictive text either), they turned out to be really
handy and easy to use.
Camera
The camera is such an important feature in
a smartphone. The 8mp camera of the Z10 is impressive under broad daylight.
Here are some sample photos:
Can’t say much about
night shots though. I’m not too happy with the output with the flash on but that’s
something common with other phones.
There’s also the
TimeShift feature which lets you capture burst shots to produce the output that
you want by combining elements from the different sequence of photos. This idea
is not new as most flagship phones these days have something like it as a
built-in camera feature.
Security and Setting up
There were some things with setting up and
security that I came across with that just really got my attention. I didn’t
really get over it:
I owned a Blackberry Curve before and I was
very impressed at the way BBM has this feature of backing up the contact list
via email automatically so if I switch phones, all I had to do was to restore a
backup from my email. I haven’t turned on the BIS of my old Blackberry
Curve for a few months but I’m pretty sure that all of my three emails
have a backup of my BBM contact list. So here I was looking forward to seeing
my old contact list with the Z10, but for some reason, the smartphone couldn’t
seem to detect any backups from all of my three email addresses. I don’t
know if there are compatibility issues there but it sure was a let down.
It’s only here in the Z10 that I encountered a
1:1 ratio with the Blackberry ID and the phone environment. Meaning, if I want
to log out of the current Blackberry ID and change it to another, it would mean
wiping the phone of all its contacts, calendar, apps, etc. Mind you, it takes a
while to wipe the whole thing.
I had to set the phone into Development
mode for Sideloading (more on that later) and for some reason, that
automatically set the phone to ask for a passcode when I locked the phone. When
I needed to unlock it, it asked for a passcode that I didn’t
know of (ulk), and failure to key in the passcode… will result to
a phone wipe.
I wasn’t too happy with
the idea that for me to access the memory/HDD of the unit, I would need to
install the Blackberry Link first. What if I need to retrieve some files using
another computer? I wish it was just plug-and-play.
Sideloading
I think those who plan on purchasing a
Blackberry should understand the concept of sideloading first before they make
any decisions of purchasing one. I heard of rumors before the release of the
Z10 that it will allow Android apps to be installed into the smartphone (Ding
ding ding! In simpler terms, this means I could have Instagram installed the
Blackberry! Yes it is a big deal for me).
Sideloading is a way to install Android
apps into the Blackberry. This is a big advantage especially when Blackberry
doesn’t offer the official app in the Blackberry App World. You can get
some apps such as Instagram, Google Maps, Kindle, Gmail into your Blackberry
through sideloading. What’s disappointing with this is that you will
need a computer unit , download/install some software, and make sure you have
an app compatible to the Blackberry 10 OS in order for it to work. Also, there’s a
big chance that the available app for sideloading is not the latest app. This
reminds me a lot of jailbreaking with IOS.
You can see the step-by-step instructions to
do sideloading here. I am ashamed to say that a tech-enthusiast like me took
almost 3 hours to get Instagram sideloaded into the Blackberry.
Verdict
I’d like to welcome BlackBerry (not RIM
anymore) back into the smartphone world. The Blackberry Z10 is a good release
and I’m sure BBM fans are happy with this upgrade. This may not trump the
leading smartphones out there – there are a number of things that can still
be improved on, but it just means that BB is back and will give consumers
another choice in the market for a good smartphone. Next order of business for
them is to bring in more popular apps into BlackBerry App World.
BlackBerry Z10 Specs:
4.2-inch LCD capacitive touchscreen, 768 x
1280, 355 ppi
Dual-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8960
Snapdragon (Krait)
Adreno 225 GPU
BlackBerry 10 OS
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage, microSD up to 32GB
8 MP autofocus rear camera with LED flash
2 MP 720p front camera
HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps; LTE
Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, NFC
Li-Ion 1800 mAh battery
130 x 65.6 x 9 mm
135g
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