The BlackBerry Hub
These gestures sound simple, but they make
the BlackBerry Z10 feel different to use than the average smartphone, and once
we had the hang of them they felt just right. It’s also nice to have a phone
that puts messaging at the heart of the OS for once.
The Hub is always a gestures away, whatever
you happen to be doing, whether that’s using the up-then-right swipe, or a
simple left-right swipe from the multitasking view. Once you’ve brought it up,
the Hub works efficiently as a place for gathering all of your communications
together.
These
gestures sound simple, but they make the BlackBerry Z10 feel different to use
than the average smartphone
The default view displays all messages in
one stream, from SMS, BBM, email, Twitter and Facebook messages, to calls and
even phone notifications. If all that’s too much, you can quickly narrow it
down: a swipe in from the left edge of the screen brings up a list of inboxes,
allowing quick filtering by message type. It’s also possible to search and
compose any message type here.
Phone calls, texting and BBM
As a messaging phone, the BlackBerry Z10 is
the very model of efficiency, and this is carried across to the phone, texting,
and message-composition features. As with the Hub, you can quickly access the
phone app from anywhere; all it takes is a swipe to get you back to the
multitasking screen and a single tap. The phone button is always there, in the
bottom-left corner.
In the phone app, you can’t use the number
pad to search contacts and it won’t suggest numbers as you type. However, the
contact search is very quick indeed. You can also forego the phone app entirely
by using the universal search function: hit the search key on the multitasking
screen, and contact matches appear up top, just below apps. It’s then possible
to initiate calls or texts with a single tap.
As
a messaging phone, the BlackBerry Z10 is the very model of efficiency, and this
is carried across to the phone, texting, and message-composition features
Call quality is exemplary – voices came
through crystal clear at both ends in texting – and there’s even a note-taking
tool on the in-call screen for jotting stuff down as you go. As had become
customary, text messaging is threaded, and it’s simple to forward messages and
copy and paste between apps.
Elsewhere, a couple of key new features
have been added to BBM, so it’s now possible not only to have text
conversations and make voice calls, but also to initiate video calls and share
your screen. These work best over a decent Wi-Fi or 4G connection; images
looked smeary and unpleasant over 3G connections.
It’s the keyboard that’s the most important
aspect of the Z10’s messaging element, however. It’s what BlackBerry made most
fuss over at the launch. And it’s certainly very different to anything we’ve
tried before, you can see exactly how it works in the walkthrough above, and
there’s no doubt the prediction is impressive. Alas, there are problems. The
first is the font used for the suggestions themselves: it’s far too small and
subtly colored. You may fail to notice the suggestions are there at first, and
we expect some wearers of glasses to have difficulty reading them. We can’t
imagine how developers didn’t think this would be an issue.
It’s
the keyboard that’s the most important aspect of the Z10’s messaging element
The second is that, to keep scanning for
these suggestions, your eyes have to be in far too many places at once: as with
other word-prediction systems, you have to look at the keyboard when typing,
glancing up to make sure you’ve typed the letter correctly, here, however, you
also have to keep scanning between the keys. In some situations, we found this
actually slowed down typing instead of speeding it up. Another fault is the
letters on the keys themselves don’t change case as you hit the Shift key.
There’s no typing lag, however.
BlackBerry also made great play of
BlackBerry Balance at launch, a feature that makes it possible to effectively
split the Z10 in two and give your IT department control of on half while you
keep personal content on the other. This isn’t new – it first appeared in 2011
– but it’s certainly useful, enabling IT departments to prevent personal apps
from accessing data in the corporate half. It also allows IT departments to
remote-wipe corporate data and apps without affecting the rest of the device –
a potential plus for companies considering implementing a BYOD policy.
Apps and other content
The big question when any new platform
touches down, however, is “how good are the apps?”. It would be unfair to
expect the breadth of iOS and Android, but BlackBerry World’s count of
70,000-plus at launch is promising. It’s certainly much more positive than
Windows Phone was at launch, and it isn’t too hard to track down entertainment
games and useful apps to purchase and install.
The
BlackBerry Z10 marks a confident and encouraging return to form in BlackBerry’s
bid to catch up with Android, iOS and Windows Phone
We were pleased to see apps like Splashtop
remote, Angry Birds Star Wars and World of Goo ready to go, and there are
plenty of big names on the list of firms BlackBerry says are “committed” to
developing for the platform. These include (but aren’t limited to) eBay, Amazon
(Kindle app), Skype an Spotify. Even without these, though, it’s a good effort
from BlackBerry. There’s also a solid selection of apps pre-loaded, including
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and calculator an compass apps, plus
Documents To Go for creating and editing office documents. The maps app has
turn-by-turn driving instructions, but it’s nowhere near as slick as Google
Maps.
Verdict
Aside from performance niggles, then, the
new wave of BlackBerry smartphones is off to a flying start with the BlackBerry
Z10. For a new smartphone on a first-generation platform it feels remarkably
mature, with an exceptionally well-thought-on interface that aims to provide
something different and largely succeeds.
There’s a decent selection of apps in the
BlackBerry World store, the screen is exceptional and the camera isn’t that bad
at all. Even the pricing isn’t overly avaricious: online slipup put it at
around $750 outright, about expected for a high end smartphone.
The BlackBerry Z10 marks a confident and
encouraging return to form in BlackBerry’s bid to catch up with Android, iOS
and Windows Phone. It isn’t quite good enough to compete for overall honors
just yet, but it’s a big step in the right direction.
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Specifications
·
Price: $733
·
Ratings: 4/6
·
Supplier: au.blackberry.com
·
Dual-core 1.5GHz
·
Snapdragon S4 Plus
·
2GB RAM
·
16GB storage
·
4.2in, 768 x 1280 display
·
Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA
·
Dual0band 802.11m Wi-Fi
·
1800mAh battery
·
66 x 9.3 x 130mm (WDH)
·
Weight: 136g
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