BlackBerry Z10 Review

By Rob Boggan

RIM and the Blackberry brand have come along way from their once mighty hold within the smartphone market. Ever since the iPhone came out it’s been nothing but gloom and doom, and with each subsequent release things began to get darker and darker. As more and more companies began to drop BlackBerry devices, there seemed to be no end in sight for the fall from grace that RIM was suffering. Now, the company that once owned the smartphone crown is doubling down on new devices backed by a new interface aimed at restoring glory to the once proud land of Waterloo. Backed by BlackBerry 10, these new devices are designed to steal some of the spotlight from other competitors devices, all while keeping the BlackBerry name relevant in today’s constantly changing market. The BlackBerry Z10 is the first device out the gate tasked with making RIM and BlackBerry relevant again, but does it have enough fire power to do so? Or will it ultimately get lost in the shuffle and forgotten once again?

From a design aspect, the BlackBerry Z10 actually has a modern, minimalistic design to it. There’s a very basic solid black color scheme and the frame is eerily similar to an iPhone. On the front lies a 4.2 inch (768 x 1280) display, and the 2MP front facing camera. In my hand, the Z10 felt really thin and lightweight, and the grooved battery cover helped add to the grip on the device. On the right side of the device lies the volume rocker with the convenience key nestled in between the increase and decrease buttons. Along the left side of the phone is a micro USB port along with a micro HDMI for screen mirroring, with the lock button relegated to the top of the device, and the loud speaker moved to the bottom. The rear of the phone houses the main 8MP camera, LED flash, and a flexible plastic battery cover. From most BlackBerry devices, we’re treated to a look and feel that screams “premium build” but I must say that the Z10 feels more like a Curve and less like a Bold.

The interface on the Z10 is revamped, but feels like a mash-up between Android and iOS. Icons are Arranged in a 4×4 layout, and rearranging them requires a simple press and hold motion. Dragging one icon on top of another creates  a new folder, and of course there’s the obligatory trash can symbol next to app icons for getting rid of those unwanted apps. Navigation takes a bit of getting used to as there are no physical buttons on the front of the device. Instead users can perform a handful of gestures to get to where you need to be. I was a huge fan of the new BlackBerry hub along with peek notification previews. BlackBerry Hub was more or less a centralized location for all notifications including email, and social networks. Peek essentially gives you just that – a peek at how many notifications you have waiting, and from what service they originated. BlackBerry App world has been replaced by… wait for it, BlackBerry World. BlackBerry World does a great job of replacing the bland, uninspired interface of old, with a newer, more modern storefront, that accents all the new services that BlackBerry 10 will offer. Rocking over 70,000 apps, along with thousands of movies and TV shows, BlackBerry World looks more like a legit store front than previous incarnations and has more robust offerings. One of BlackBerry’s biggest strengths in the past was its keyboard, and most importantly its messaging offerings. I’m proud to say that although the BlackBerry has moved to a completely touch interface  it has not missed a beat when it comes to typing. Probably one of best keyboards I’ve ever used on a touch screen device, the Z10’s keyboard is highly accurate, highly efficient, and highly effective. One of the biggest advantages of the new keyboard is the addition of a smart flick feature that works like auto predict but is way cooler and way more accurate. How it works is simple: You start typing and word suggestions appear around the keyboard. From there, you perform a simple swipe gesture towards whatever word you’d like to input into your sentence and viola! Actually makes typing extra fast once you get used to it.

On the inside of the Z10 is where I would say I personally felt the most disappointment. The dual core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon processor does the job and honestly does it well, but the 1800 mAh battery fails to keep up with it. My two (count em TWO) review devices flat out failed to keep up with the hustle and bustle of an average days use for me, and even in standby (not being used) the battery seemed to die as if I were still using it. On top of the poor battery life, my devices also suffered from a ton of random reboots. Maybe it was just a freaky coincidence, but between two different review devices, I counted a total of 16 random reboots within two days time. That’s ridiculous. Rocking 16GB of internal storage, the Z10 is no slouch when it comes to storage, especially with the inclusion of a microSD slot that’s expandable to 32GB. Most people would see an issue with the phone “only” being expandable to an additional 32GB of memory, but with all the cloud services floating around these days, some would argue that 16GB is more than enough. 2GB of RAM helps keep the Z10 moving smooth as butter, and helps prevent the lag issues that the Torch and Bold both suffered from once several apps get installed. The cameras were another bright point in using the Z10. Even though they weren’t the absolute best in terms of performance, they did manage to get the job done much better than most other smartphones. I did notice an issue when it came to focusing however. The camera would often try to focus and refocus, and each time it felt like the new focal point was worse than the original. Video recorded pretty decent, especially when cranked to full 1080p. I also found it interesting that instead of adjusting “picture quality” users had the ability to simply adjust aspect ratio.

The BlackBerry exclusives is where RIM would hope to reclaim most of their lost audiences, but it looks like they may have a case of too little too late on their hands. BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) has received the most minor of minor face-lifts and was more or less updated to keep up with FaceTime and iMessage on iOS. RIM did users a solid by allowing the new BBM video chat to be accessible via Wi-Fi or cellular without the need of any special data plans from your carrier. Video calls actually worked beautifully, and audio was surprisingly great. Another smart move by RIM, was the ability to allow people to invite you to their BBM via NFC, which essentially allows users to touch the backs of their phones together in order to send invites without the goofy QR codes or the need to remember your pin. I cannot stress enough how often I would use the speaker phone on my BlackBerry devices, and I cannot stress how deeply saddened I was to actually hear the Z10 speaker in action. No matter what I tried, the volume levels just were never quite right, and I would just about have to go hide in a broom closet in order to get the most out of the speaker.

With BlackBerry 10 being more or less the make it or break it OS for RIM I wouldn’t necessarily classify the Z10 as a miss, although it’s a long way away from a hit. I personally feel if RIM could pick up steam with developer and app support, they could once again step in and gain some ground. There was quite a few things I walked away really impressed by, and unfortunately even more things I was gravely disappointed by. In the end, this phone could be a couple updates away from being a good device, but right now those couple updates couldn’t come soon enough.