Blackberry Z10- Not your father's Blackberry

First of all, there are many reviews out there which compare the new Z10 to other similar format smart phones. I have not ever used any of those, so this review will not make references to those differences.

This Smartphone is 5.12 inches by 2.58 by .35 inches in depth and weighs in at 4.78 ounces. It is Blackberry’s first release of a full touch screen phone featuring easy to learn gesture based navigation. This initially is based on a basic swipe of the screen from middle bottom up to wake the phone up. If you forget how to start and swipe in the incorrect manner, it will prompt you by displaying a arrow pointing upward from the bottom edge of the screen. Once awake, swiping to the right displays what they call the Hub, which is pretty much any and all messages, emails, texts phone calls placed or received, etc. Looking into the hub shows all. Or you can look specifically at any one folder. There will also be a message count displayed by folder on the home screen, as well as any upcoming calendar events in your schedule.

Swiping from the Hub to the right again will go to a multiple page listing of your apps. These can be moved around by touching and dragging. Or if you want to delete any of them (that can be deleted anyway) all you do is place and hold your figure on the app to delete. If it is possible to delete, it will show a trashcan as the display starts to pulse. Finger the trashcan, and the phone will ask if you mean to delete, etc. At the bottom of the home screen and app display, there is a dedicated camera shortcut. Once the app listing is displayed, this is joined by a search icon, and a phone icon.

Speaking a bit about apps, if there is a drawback about the Z10 currently, it may be the lack of apps. I figure Blackberry is aware of the problem and are adding more to the app store all the time. Also, if you can’t wait for them to catch up, there is a website dedicated to the “side loading” of Android apps into the format needed for Blackberry 10 devices. It is called “Blackberry Playbook and BB10 and Android apps” http://apps.goodereader.com/playbook/playbook-android-apps/. There are also a couple of apps that you may want from older devices that do not at first appear to be in the app store. One of those is Pandora, an internet radio app you may recognize. On the Blackberry app store, this is available as an app called “Apollo”. There may be others with slight changes to the titles. In older devices, I had an app called ScoreMobile. It is now simply, theScore. Some functions of the apps are not quite as before.

The keyboard is quite different from other blackberry devises and from most other smart phones. It predicts the word you are trying to type as you type. When you see the desired word in a bubble above the letter you are on, if you flick it upward with your finger, it will travel to the text you are entering. Or, the completed spell checked word will appear in the spacebar area. Tap it, and it will go the spot you are typing in the document. This can be a neat feature, but it may have some weirdness with it if the word you are attempting is not in the dictionary of possible words. I tried to type the word “tendonosis” which is defined as chronic tendonitis, and the Z10 insisted on my entering it as “tendonitis”. There may be a way to add words to the dictionary, but I have not located that yet. (An aside, Microsoft Word also tries to suggest that, but at least I have a choice with Word to ignore the spelling, or add it to the dictionary.)

Dedicated keys are volume up, volume down, mute, and On/Off. As of this writing, I have not found any apps that can reassign special additional functions to the volume and mute buttons as had existed in earlier third party apps. It is easy to get to the apps anyway, so this may not be an issue for you. The power button doubles as a backlight turn off if shallowly depressed in battery mode. When on battery, or plugged in, holding it down will display a way to reset your phone, or if you continue holding it down, it will count you down to “off”. Either way you go, it looks like you will have to wait for a reset. One way will reset and re-turn on the device. The other will wait until you click the on button again. This is much faster than the old battery pull reset required periodically with older Blackberry’s, but does take a bit of time. If you need the device to be on quickly, it may be better to just put it into Sleep mode if you want to charge overnight.

That brings up the battery, a constant bugaboo with any smart device with a larger screen (and some small screens). The battery is listed as 1800 mAH. What I hear is battery life of the first phones released was terrible. Supposedly, this issue was improved by a software update. I say supposedly, because this release has not happened for my version yet. I am stuck with closing unused apps when not in use- which is a good idea anyway, and by recharging nightly. I would recharge nightly anyway, so that is not a big deal for me. Your mileage may vary. The most I have run the battery down in what is normal use for me, was to just around 50%, which included a lot of app downloads, Weather updates with BeWeather (a stunning visual experience for any app), and also Wi-Fi at home and Bluetooth connections for use in my car. Battery specs follow, and note that the times they state for use are for 3G network settings. The phone is capable of regular 4G or 4G LTE if your carrier supports it. I would like to comment on the LTE, but it is still in testing mode for my city and carrier.

Swiping the display from top down gets a screen to access Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, ringer and other functions. Once set, it also is a quick way to turn off or on any of these functions.

Other features
The phone is typical of other Blackberry phones in sound quality in a call. The processor is a dual core 1.5 gHz and the device has 2 GB RAM and 16 GB Flash expandable memory. It supports up to 32 GB SD card. It has USB for charging and data transfer, and HDMI port. The device also includes NFC support for use of device to pay for things at retail set-ups, or to transfer files, etc to other equipped devices.

The rear camera is 8 megapixel auto-focus with 5 element lens. There is a Dedicated ISP (image signal processor) with 64MB frame buffer allowing you to take the perfect shot, by choice of the perfect expression for a portrait. If the eyes are closed in your shot, you can adjust within this buffer to a shot with open eyes. The front camera is 2 megapixel fixed-focus camera. The video camera is 3x digital zoom with 720p HD video recording with image stabilization.

Full Specs follow

Size
Height 130 mm / 5.12 in
Width 65.6 mm / 2.58 in
Depth 9 mm / 0.35 in
Weight
135.4g / 4.78 oz

Navigation
All-touch screen, with intuitive gesture based navigation
Keyboard
On screen BlackBerry Keyboard (portrait/landscape), featuring contextual auto-correction, next-word prediction, and a personalized learning engine that gets to know the way you type

Dedicated keys
Volume Up/Down, Mute, Lock (for Power On/Off)
Display
Resolution
1280 x 768 resolution, at 356 PPI
24-bit color depth
Screen size
4.2" diagonal
15:9 aspect ratio
OS & desktop software
Operating system
BlackBerry 10 OS

Performance
Processor
Dual Core 1.5 GHz

Memory
2GB RAM
16GB Flash
Expandable memory
Removable microSD memory card – slot under battery door (Up to 32 GB)
USB Ports
USB 2.0 high speed port – allows charging and data synchronization of the device with a USB cable
HDMI Port
Micro HDMI for connection to your HDTV or projector

Power
Battery
1800mAH removable battery
Battery Life
Up to 10 hours talk time (3G) although it is a 4G phone, and is capable of LTE which would decrease this time greatly
Up to 13 days standby time
*Note: Battery life claims are for Model STL100-3

Camera & video
Rear camera
8 megapixel auto-focus camera
Back Side Illumination for better low-light performance
5-element F2.2 lens
Dedicated ISP (image signal processor) with 64MB frame buffer
Flash, continuous and touch to focus, image stabilization
Enhanced Super Resolution Digital Zoom (5x)
1080p HD video recording
4 DOF (Degrees of freedom) video stabilization
Time Shift mode for pinpointing and adjusting individual elements of your picture
Front camera
2 megapixel fixed-focus camera
Image and video stabilization
3x digital zoom
720p HD video recording

Apps
Pre-loaded apps
BlackBerry® Hub, Contacts, BlackBerry® Browser, BlackBerry® Calendar, BBM, Text Messages, BlackBerry® World, BlackBerry® Remember, Docs To Go™, Pictures, Music, Videos, Story Maker, Facebook®1, Twitter®1, LinkedIn®1, Foursquare®, BlackBerry® Maps, Games, YouTube®, Voice Control, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Compass, File Manager, Box, BlackBerry® Connect for Dropbox, Print To Go, Smart Tags, Settings, Adobe® Reader, Phone, Camera/Video Camera/Time Shift, Setup, Help, SIM Toolkit, Search

Recommended: Yes