New BlackBerry? New BlackBerry
Let me be honest, I really don't care about the new BlackBerry phones. I specifically started this site so I could pass on writing stuff I knew was not really worth considering, like this.
But I am writing about it anyhow because I am really turned off by the amount of hype and noise around this launch and I think it’s more fair to take the time and tell you about the phones and the software’s highlights so you can decide for yourself if I’m right or not.
Let’s begin.
First, are you detail-oriented? If so, scan this fine piece by Tim Stevens at Engadget about the basics of the phones, and then some. And then check out Engadget’s piece on the new Blackberry software.
Otherwise, let’s talk about the most important things.
For BlackBerry’s new OS, app selection is horrible. It’s not their fault, and maybe it’s even pretty good for a new OS with over 70,000 apps available at launch, but that doesn’t matter for you because in the end, that means they’re still far worse than the Android and iPhone/iPad libraries today. They don’t have, for example, Netflix. Oh, but Angry Birds is coming soon though.
To make sure I knew what I was talking about with apps, I reached out to Mark Spoonauer of Laptop mag. He said, “BlackBerry deserves credit for making sure many social apps are here on Day 1, which is critical because of integration with the BlackBerry Hub. And I’m encouraged by the promised game selection. For example, Nova 3 looks pretty sweet as a first-person shooter. Gameloft said it didn’t take much effort to port the iOS app over to BB 10.
However, there are a lot of missing apps, such as Instagram, Spotify, Netflix and Yelp, as well as ones I use all the time like Concur for expenses. I’m also concerned about quality. Some apps look just as good as their Android and iOS counterparts, while others (The Weather Channel and ESPN ScoreCenter) seem more watered down. Like mobile websites masquerading as apps.”
This is a big deal to me, because why pay the same for a handset with with less software to offer? You never know what apps you might need if you pick up hobbies or develop interests or need tools for work or life, and those tools are guaranteed to be more available on iPhone and (to a slightly lesser degree) Android.
The operating system has gesture controls, which are nice to see on a handset–in theory. Swipe the screen up and you get the main interface, and you can switch between your running apps (up to 8 at once, a weird limitation.) Swiping from left-to-right or right-to-left switches apps. Swipe up and to the right and the phone brings up BlackBerry Hub, which brings up all the communication mediums you can use to reach out to your contacts. That’s super powerful.
The keyboard is supposedly the best keyboard to ship with any smartphone, letting you swipe downward to get to numbers and characters while the autocomplete for text shows up on the keyboard, not in the text above, making it easier to trigger. See:
Maps are not so good.
Let’s talk about the phones themselves.
There’s a keyboard phone with a tiny screen. I’m not even going to try to pretend to understand the demographic that likes physical keyboards anymore over the expansiveness of full-body screens, so I am going to leave that one alone. If you like BlackBerry and keyboards, I’m not going to try and change your mind and I’m certainly not going to try to understand you. I accept you, and we can agree to disagree.
Let’s talk a bit more about the touchscreen phone. It looks like any other smartphone these days, but with no home button and a horrible camera (says my friend Jesus Diaz of Gizmodo). Yes, it has a screen, is kind of thin, and has volume and a unlock button and near field communications abilities (AKA NFC; AKA I still don’t know why this is useful) and a Micro HDMI port. It has fast wireless data AKA LTE. Tim Stevens says, “Call quality was average” but the speakerphone is low on volume. I’ve already said too much. It’s average, and less than average sometimes, too, in its physical form.
You should not buy this phone unless you have emotional and cultural reasons to love Blackberry, or some arcane enterprise reason I will not pretend to understand. Tim Stevens agrees, saying, “I think the Z10 is a really nice device, and I think that BB10 is a really nice OS. The problem is it just isn’t a standout in any regard. But, and this is an important but, I think BB10 will make those stalwart BlackBerry fans very happy, and will keep them faithful.”
I don’t mean to be dismissive of BlackBerry’s efforts as a company but I know where my loyalties are, and it’s not with Android or Apple or any company. It boils down to this–I would never ever tell anyone I care about to consider these phones. So, that’s what I think about BlackBerry’s new stuff.
You could have just said “sucks less than the Blackberry Storm did 4 and 1/2 years ago” called it a day.
next time!
It is just another iPhone clone.
What would be better from BlackBerry would be iPhone apps and accessories. They could be very profitable at that already, providing enterprise messaging and hardware keyboards for iPhone users.
No, an iPhone clone would have a good camera.
If BlackBerry 10 is an iPhone clone, then every smartphone is an iPhone clone.
In fact, it’s not an iPhone clone, and the proof is that you can’t pick it up and just start using it like an iPhone. It’s got different features, different navigation. It takes a few minutes to learn but once you do, you’ll be able to do everything faster than you could with an iPhone.
As you said, for a more professional review go to Engadget (or The Verge, Crackberry, WSJ, etc.). Your opinion is very personal, and I respect that. Obviously you are already in the iOS ecosystem, so your perspective is understandable. I’ve had iOS and Android devices (my smartphone of choice is a Galaxy Note). Regarding tablets, I own a BlackBerry Playbook (bought it on sale) and a Nexus 7. I liked the Playbook a lot, gestures are very useful, multitasking is great, quality (screen, cameras, etc.) is remarkable. But I’d like to say something about Apps. Truly, BlackBerry is missing a lot. I miss Skype more in the Playbook ( apparently is now on board for BB10), but Netflix?. I remember I wanted so bad Netflix on my Android, I got it, I’ve never seen a movie or TV. Why to use Netflix on a small screen?. If I’m at home I watch Netflix on whether my big HD TV using PS3, or in my old 32″ TV using Roku. On the road, It will kill my cap (yes, I have a data cap). Maybe you don’t watch movies on a big screen, or you have unlimited bandwidth and batgery, or you don’t have normal use cases, or me!!!.
Netflix mobile use case on a phone with HDMI out would seem to be pretty obvious to me – hotel rooms. Enjoy your own Netlix queue/pick up the movie you were halfway through before you left for your business trip, AND avoid VOD charges.
Also – airports. In both cases you are somewhere with WIFI and plenty of time to kill.
What’s the point in a review that doesn’t really tell you what you should buy? That’s what’s important, and that’s what this review does. The new BlackBerry phone is not worth considering. It is not better at anything, and has a very limited chance of being around in two years. End of discussion.
A review shouldn’t “tell you what you should buy”, that’s that’s called an ad. A review should be an objective and subjective description of the device. I’ll decide for myself what I should buy, but I’ll take the perceptions of certain people under advisement when I make that decision.
Once upon a time, newspapers employed professional “reviewers” who attended say, a ballet performance and then wrote about what the company was doing, what strengths and weaknesses were on display, etc.
A good review meant not that the reviewer enjoyed the performance, or that it was cutely written, but that you got a sense of what it would’ve been like to have been there. If you didn’t go because you thought the ballerina was too formal to be right as Odette, you could get the reviewer’s sense of that.
This article is NOT such a “review.” You almost never see a review that discusses how a phone’s features make it more right for an X user but less right for a Y user. Even posts that pretend to be reviews, mostly talk about how much the writer might want to use the device, with the particular usage patterns or relevance of different features not discussed.
Lo and behold, the article does not SAY it’s a review. I’d say, most posts that DO claim to be reviews, actually should be called “impressions,” “feature lists” or occasionally “performance tests” instead. Or a mishmash.
Take it for what it says it is: a justification for an ill-tempered response to what was perceived as some massive PR hype, and an invitation to consider whether indeed, the PR was WAAAY disproportionate to the product.
For sure, this is not a review. it’s just some thoughts on what I could tell from this distance. Thank you for reading
Have you read NYT Pogue’s review?. He actually used it. Just saying. I mean, several bloggers have predicted BB end for several years now (they got it right in the fact RIM is now BlackBerry
).
That is just it. This isn’t claiming to be a review. Lam is merely explaining why he wouldn’t consider using a Blackberry. For him to consider it, Blackberry would have needed to bring something compelling to the market. Instead, it brought a phone to market that is comparable to the market leaders, but with less apps.
I read a few reviews, yes. That’s mostly how I informed my opinion.
Yes, Pogue actually used it. But just a teensy bit of capture came through to me in his claim that the spell-checker and word-proposer would get better with more use. He just hasn’t had an opportunity to see that for himself and he can’t tell us how much better it will actually work out in practice. Sounds just like a repeat of an enthusiastic BB proselytizer’s promotion.
The point of mentioning Netflix is that it’s not yet on the BB10 platform, not just that it’s missing from this phone.
Hey Jaime, opinions are like assholes–everyone’s got one. A lot of people are interested in Brian’s, which is probably why they come here. Yours? Not so much. I’m not saying it’s not valid, just that most people don’t care.
When I am at the Gym on the treadmill, I watch Netflix.
I also like Android and windows phone. And yeah, this is not a review, because I haven’t touched it. Just some outside thoughts which don’t depend on hands on.
RIM’s entire presentation reeked of self-importance. As though over five years of the existence of a modern smartphone interface was a dismissible preamble to the “real” “innovation” by the self-appointed grownups in the room.
BB10 looks as though it has a few unique interface wrinkles of its own, but it seems far less original than Metro. They weren’t taking any chances by distancing themselves too far from iOS.
Looking forward to seeing the first reviews of consumer units. And I wish RIM luck competing for third place.
why would anyone recommend reading this uninformed crap? States only reason for writing it is dismay at the hype and noise (translation: page view envy) and then spews out did hype and anecdotal bullshit in response? I want my 30 seconds back.
You could have saved 30 seconds by not commenting.
Yeah, this really is a shit piece of writing. Remind me to never click through to this site again.
You know man, the thing with this site is that it’s very informed. It’s the opinion of an informed person you have an issue with – let’s get that straight.
Lam opens the whole article saying he does this site to avoid having to veil how he feels, like ALL THE OTHER SITES are doing right now.
Every time you read “Is it too little, too late?” about RIM this week? THAT WAS CODE for “THIS ISN’T GOING TO DO IT, RIM/BLACKBERRY.”
Nobody would have a doubt if it was groundbreaking, like RIM needed.
There are plenty of sites that will spin a nicer tale about RIM right now. I don’t mind reading about someone not buying the maple syrup Kool-Ehd.
thank you for understanding my points, which do not require hands on time, and disclaimers, which state I do not know everything
If you disagree, that’s fine. but if you’re going to be a dick about it, I’d prefer you go away. this is a civilized place.