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  • Overall Score: 7
  • Hardware: 7.5
  • Software: 6.5
  • User Experience: 7

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The BlackBerry Z10 isn’t just another new smartphone. It’s a symbol of redemption, the net result of the efforts of thousands working to salvage one of the most famous brands in the history of mobile technology. For the first time in years, “the new BlackBerry” isn’t just some repackaged business phone; it’s an iconic flagship on which rests the fate of the company that now shares its name.

“We had to make a serious decision,” BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said at the coming-out party for its new smartphones; “adopt someone else’s platform, or build a new one from the ground up. We decided to go it alone.”

It’s that stubborn defiance, that refusal to surrender in the face of tremendous odds, that characterizes the reborn smartphone maker. The stakes couldn’t be higher for BlackBerry, and the company finally seems to realize that. That’s reflected in its new high-end smartphone: from its revised physical design to its built-from-scratch BB10 platform, the Z10 is as much a breath of fresh air as an homage to the classic elements that kept BlackBerry on top for so long. But is the new combination finely tuned enough -and did it arrive soon enough- to save BlackBerry from the chopping block? More important, is it something anyone should consider buying? Read on to find out.

Video Review · Specs · Hardware · BlackBerry 10 · Camera · Performance · Battery Life · Network · Availability · Conclusion · Scored For Me

Video Review

Specs

spacer BlackBerry will doubtless tailor custom versions of the Z10 for carriers around the world, but those variants are sure to share the majority of the guts featured in our global review unit. The device’s removable, gumstick-like 1800-mAh battery powers a 1.5GHz dual-core processor backed up by 2GB of RAM – ample power to support the new QNX-based BlackBerry 10 software platform. The 16GB of on-board storage is expandable via microSD to an additional 64GB, and an HDMI port sits alongside the USB 2.0 socket on the side of the device, ready to output your media to a compatible TV, projector, or monitor.

For radios, the global-edition Z10 packs support for quad-band EDGE, HSPA+, and LTE, as well as 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi at 2.4 and 5GHz, Bluetooth 4.0, and of course GPS. There’s no wireless charging support on board, but an NFC antenna mounted to the inside surface of the battery cover ensures the space doesn’t go wasted.

For shutterbugs, the primary camera is a backside-illuminated 8MP/1080p component fitted with a five-element ƒ2.2 lens and a dedicated image signal processor, while its front-side counterpart is a fairly typical 2MP, 720p-capable unit.

Finally, if you’re worried about friends with competing devices out-tricordering you on away missions, you can rest easy. The Z10 packs the sensor suite now considered essential for all high-end smartphones: an accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and magnetometer (compass).

Index

Hardware

The Z10′s dimensions and unusual edge-to-edge midriff have prompted endless comparisons to Apple’s iPhone 5, which is understandable given the devices’ superficial similarity in photos. In person, though, the new BlackBerry is very much its own smartphone. Where the iPhone 5 resembles a delicate piece of jewelry, the Z10 seems built with an eye toward a more hands-on, rough-and-tumble lifestyle. It’s also significantly larger, but at 137g it’s not going to weigh down any pockets with its bulk.

spacer At 9mm, the Z10 is of average thickness – and there’s no edge tapering here to fool the hand, as on devices like HTC’s Windows Phone 8X. The Z10′s sheer sides and sharp corners mean you feel every millimeter in daily use. That, combined with the stippled soft-touch of the battery cover, gives the unit a feel that’s sturdy without being overbearing. The rubbery back coating helps keep the Z10 firmly nestled in a palm, its machined stainless-steel volume and mute buttons resting just under the thumb. They, along with the power/standby key up top, feature reassuring travel and a satisfying clickiness that makes us wish there were a dedicated camera button alongside.

The BlackBerry logo graces both sides of the phone, with the icon called out in chrome relief on the back cover and the full logo placed just below the display on the front. The back logo earns the Z10 extra cool points for doubling as the NFC antenna, but the front logo has the opposite effect: it’s a little too big for our taste. On the bright side, you don’t notice it quite as much with the display turned on.

spacer Speaking of that display: it’s a 4.2-inch panel, which makes it very accessible for one-handed use. At that size, its 1280×768 resolution provides a pixel density of 356ppi, which means text is sharp, and pictures and video are rendered beautifully. It’s an IPS LCD screen, so it sacrifices the deep blacks and higher saturation that an AMOLED panel would provide, and we also wish it were a tad brighter – but it’s still a very nice display.

Breaking with an increasingly common trend across flagship smartphones, the protective layer atop the Z10′s display is not Corning Gorilla Glass. BlackBerry says there’s some kind of anti-fingerprint layer atop the glass it did use, but it’s nowhere near as effective as the oleophobic coatings used on other smartphones. The Z10′s glass picks up -and holds on to- fingerprints and skin oil much more readily than most other modern displays. On the up side, the protective top layer is bonded directly to the display element, so images seem to float right along the surface of the glass. Viewing angles are quite good, even in broad daylight.

And yes, old BlackBerry stalwarts, it’s here: above the screen, to the right of the earpiece, the iconic red notification LED hides beneath the glass. When an alert comes in, the light flashes once every few seconds to remind you not just that you have a new message, but that it’s a BlackBerry bringing it to you. Sure, you can disable it in the settings – but then you’re not just missing messages; you’re slapping all of vintage tech culture right in the face.

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Don’t act like this doesn’t get you just a little nostalgic.

Speaking of ruddy artifacts from yesteryear: while the Z10 can be carried naked, it also comes with a nice, crayon-red BlackBerry carrying case in the box. The sleeve serves the dual purpose of protecting the phone and stoking our nostalgia, and magnets hidden within it tell the Z10 when it’s holstered and when it’s not. That allows the phone to automatically douse its display backlighting when it’s stowed, though the holster-specific profiles of previous generations have been removed from BB10. That’s annoying, but we expect BlackBerry to restore this functionality in a future update.

In a time when companies are offering less and less in terms of in-box accessories, with some OEMs even removing chargers from the equation, it’s nice to see that BlackBerry hasn’t forgotten what a premium unboxing experience should feel like.

Index

BlackBerry 10

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Behold: the new BlackBerry OS. Click for full size.

No matter how far they wandered down the road to ruin, the folks in Waterloo never forgot how to cobble together a nice hunk of hardware. It’s not build quality we were worried about from the company formerly known as RIM, but the software experience. For years, BlackBerrys limped along with an operating system whose ancient underpinnings were painted over with layer after layer of interface refreshes. And it’s been a long time since even those refreshes looked anything like a modern OS.

spacer The BlackBerry 10 platform represents a rethinking of what a smartphone interface should look and feel like. The QNX underpinnings are hidden away behind a UI that’s refreshingly modern, landing somewhere between iOS’ skeuomorphic textured bubbles and Windows Phone’s harsh minimalism, but without the extremism of either. Instead of completely reinventing the wheel, the new BlackBerry combines new and old interface paradigms to create something unique.

At the center of the experience is the home screen, which displays up to four running apps at the same time. Apps can run in the background if they’ve been designed to, which makes BlackBerry 10 one of the few platforms that allows you to start a YouTube video in the browser, minimize it, and continue listening to the video’s soundtrack while doing something else. It’s not as impressive as Samsung’s or LG’s picture-in-picture technology, but it will come as welcome news to those who listen to music or podcasts via YouTube.

The home screen’s app cards, which BlackBerry calls “active frames,” are a peculiar mix of oversized icon and pseudo-widget. Apps like the calendar can display readable information in their minimized state, while apps like Remember only show a placeholder icon. Eight can be shown at any one time on the vertically-scrollable home screen. A frame can be discarded by tapping the “x” at its corner; this also closes the app. The frames can’t be easily rearranged, though: their order is determined by which was most recently opened, which takes some getting used to. Along the bottom of the home screen are three persistent shortcuts to the phone, camera, and the search app; the latter is an excellent utility whose power for on- and off-device search rivals that of webOS’s Just Type functionality.

To the right of the home screen sits the app list, a series of pages featuring 4 x 4 grids of icons that will be familiar to any Android or iOS user. Like the home screen, the cascading app list displays only in portrait mode. These icons are static for the most part, but the old BlackBerry “spark” has survived into the new BB10 platform, its red badge appearing on any app icon with notifications waiting.

spacer There are far more efficient ways of handling notifications on the Z10, though, and that’s via one of the crown jewels of the new BlackBerry experience: the Hub. It may seem strange to call something as pedestrian as a unified inbox a “crown jewel,” but it’s absolutely justified in this case. With the Hub, BlackBerry has taken one of the best attributes of its older platforms, brushed off the dust, and made it ten times more useful via the aptly-named “peek” functionality. From anywhere in the OS, sliding a thumb up from the screen’s bottom bezel reveals a row of notification icons along the left side of the display. If one of them looks interesting -say you’ve been waiting for a Facebook message and the telltale “f” is present- moving the thumb to the right partially uncovers the Hub, providing a preview of the message list. Reversing the motion calls the current app back into focus, but continuing the swipe all the way to the right completes the transition into the Hub so you can deal with your message.

spacer It’s gestures like these that give the new BlackBerry OS a sense of flow not found on other platforms. The short up-swipe from the bottom bezel is as intuitive and habitual here as it was on Palm’s webOS, much more elegant and efficient than mashing a thumb down on a physical home button. The same movement also allows the screen to be unlocked when the device is in standby mode, which is a nice touch. Both of these gestures are infectious: using them for less than a day had us erroneously repeating them on our Android and iOS devices. Other gestures, though, aren’t as intuitive: A swipe down from the top bezel calls up a settings/shortcuts window on the home screen, or specified settings toggles in certain apps, and right or left swipes in apps like the Hub serve as back/forward shortcuts, depending on the context.

If it seems somewhat confusing, it is – at least, at first. There’s some inconsistency here, with a back key that sometimes appears down below and sometimes doesn’t, and certain features like the “peek” aren’t always supported in landscape. It’s also frustrating that the new BlackBerry forces a user to take an action -swiping the screen- to view a message that’s just come in, rather than displaying it along the top like an Android alert or a Windows Phone

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