One day, not so long ago, my well used and well loved Blackberry Torch froze up and gave me the virtual "finger" one too many times. As I looked lovingly at the nearest dustbin, I decided to take myself to the nearest phone store to check out the competition. I had decided to tell Blackberry what part of the fiery nether regions required its presence...and switch. I was persuaded otherwise. This is why...
There has been a lot of hype about the Blackberry Z10, and rightfully so, seeing that it is the sum result of the need for Blackberry (formerly RIM) to "catch up" so to speak to the plethora of smartphone devices presently available on the market.
I have seen quite a few reviews stating that, as far as smartphones go, the Z10 gets the job done adequately but it does not "blow your socks off" if you are an Andorid, Windows phone or Iphone fan thinking about switching. From what I am given to understand, it has been largely designed to win back the die hard BB nuts (like myself) who have stuck faithfully to their BB devices despite the many issues, such has "bricking" and "event log freezing" at least 10 times a day, resulting in fortyleventeen "battery pulls" and a strong desire to fling the phone forcefully out of your car window (but stopping when you remember how much you paid for it). Another problem with being a die hard BB fan is the constant ridicule of your Android and Iphone toting friends, telling you to "Dash wey dat deh eediat foan star, yuh nuh learn yuh lesson yet?? Gwaaan sink pan de ship wid ressa de BB eediat dem!" (...and this was LITERALLY said to me up to a few days ago).
When comparing the Z10 to the present "hype" market offerings such as the Apple iPhone 5, the Samsung Galaxy S4 or the HTC One, it appears similar in form, but functionally, this baby is one sweet machine. Connectivity and peripheral wise, it has a micro SIM card slot, micro SD slot and a micro HDMI port. Sporting an attractive and lush 4.2-inch display, the Z10 features a sexy, compact frame, quite close in design to the iPhone 5, but a tad longer and thinner, and feels much "nicer" in the hand. This is a phone that you really don't feel like putting down once you have picked it up...like so many other wonderful tactile things in life...
Inside the guts of the Z10 is a nifty Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM that make Blackberry OS10 a breeze to use in terms of speed and the accessibility of key functions. Battery life is not too shabby at all from what I have seen so far being a "power user", with reasonable use yielding in a full day or so between charges, with heavy "rinse out de ting" usage (nuff web-browsing, email, text, Wi-Fi connections, and the ever-present Facebook addiction) giving the user about 8 to 10 hours or so before the phone takes a power nap and tells you what pier to jump from.
The Z10 sports a button-less user interface that works like so:
Swiping up from the little "BB Blackberry" symbol below the screen pulls up a maximum of eight windows and moving your finger up halfway from the bottom will show all unread notifications. Swiping halfway up then sliding your finger to the right will take you to the new and lovely BlackBerry Hub. The said Hub will show all connected email accounts, text messages, social networks (me ongle bizniz bout FB and likkle Twitter really...) and chat programs such as the ever present and needed BBM.
Typing within the BlackBerry 10 OS is also rather sweet, because of the Z10's ergonimically dynamic keyboard. I have found when checking out other "virtual" keyboards that some may inspire the gnashing of teeth and the utterance of a few choice expletives when trying to type anything more complicated than: "Yow. me inna de parking lot, forward nuh??"
It is well known that BlackBerry has always set the standard for physical keyboards on smartphones, but this new virtual version "sell aaafff!!" Each key is well spaced ( I have fairly large hands and big fingers) and the intuitive auto-correct "predictive text" function (which I normally hate with the fire and intensity of 10,000 suns) made the right suggestions MOST of the time. One really cool feature shows word suggestions on top of the keys of the next letter in the word you possibly may want to type. You can just swipe up and the word appears in the text of the given message you are attempting to write. The predictive function also detects how you speak to your contacts, in terms of who you address formally (for business) and who you address informally (yuh bredrin dem and wifey) and adjusts its predictive suggestions accordingly...how splendid is that?
Apps wise however, BlackBerry 10 still has some work to do....well travelled programs such as Google Talk, Kindle, and the popular Angry Birds are present, as well as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, but the Apps available still need to catch up to the choices on other platforms ( such as SKYPE!!!...which the company states will be available for the Z10 soon...)
It must be said however, that whilst the Z10 is a well-built and capable smartphone, with the potential to make you give your Android or iPhone all kinds of "bun" (meaning "to go to another, unapproved and illicit partner" in Jamaica), many that are already seasoned Droid and Apple users may opt to stay with those devices, in light of the fact that the Z10, whilst being leaps and bounds ahead of the "almshouse" (uselessly terrible) aspects of previous "Brickberries", may still not offer enough speciality features to make some cross over. Die hard BlackBerry fans however will be very pleased with the device, which is a breath of fresh air for those of us that hung on tooth and nail to our BB's, despite the "eye-rolls" from colleagues and friends when we make or recieve a phone call or message.
The Z10 is most definitely a game changer for Blackberry and whilst it is not without its hitches, it is, in my opinion, the BB I have been waiting for. Perhaps other fellow BB lovers may feel the same. If you have been a BB user for years and are in the market because your last Berry became a glorified paper-weight....you may have found your Holy Grail. Check it out and see for yourself.
