Saturday 18 May 2013

BlackBerry Z10 Complete Review and Specifications

12:29
Design
It’s been a long time coming, and now that it’s finally here, we have the opportunity to find out whether the BlackBerry 10 OS makes the grade. The Canadian phonemaker’s latest flagship device, the Z10, is our first opportunity to take a closer look. Unlike BlackBerry’s previous designs for its touchscreen models such as the Torch 9860, Storm 2 9520, and Storm 9500, the Z10 adopts the conventional touchscreen bar form factor seen with other current smartphones in the market. In fact, it very closely resembles the Apple iPhone 5. Fortunately, despite not offering much in terms of creative design, the device is solidly built even though it’s mostly made of plastic. We think the Z10 will feel right at home in the pockets of business professionals, both from the design perspective and with regards to its physical traits.
BlackBerry10 OS is built from QNX Software System, which has been widely acclaimed by the industry to be a very versatile, scalable, and reliable platform used in cars and space shuttles. The implementation of QNX for the BlackBerry10 OS is entirely new compared to the BlackBerry6 OS-like version used on the BlackBerry PlayBook. BlackBerry10 OS supports multitasking by way of its Active Frames feature, which minimizes apps and sets them aside (while still running in the background) when you swipe up from the bottom bezel. The new platform’s most celebrated feature, however, is the BlackBerry Hub, a universal inbox for all messages and notifications (email, SMS, BBM, social media, updates from third-party apps). This concept may appeal to busy users who want an overview of everything at a single glance.
In terms of app support, BlackBerry claims that there are 70,000 BlackBerry10 apps available at launch, 40% of which are Android apps ported over to BlackBerry10. As ported apps does not have the quality of native applications, BlackBerry is still using financial incentives to attract developers to code for BlackBerry10. Sunspider Javascript showed that the BlackBerry10 browser may be the fastest and most feature-rich HTML 5 browser so far made for a BlackBerry device, but unfortunately still trails after its peers. In actual use, the overall user experience is in no way inferior to the competition, but it is also not in any way better. Battery performance, we found out, is decent for a device of its size and features, although we feel that it could still be better. Do the Z10 and the BlackBerry10 OS have what it takes to keep BlackBerry alive? They certainly are very promising, but a long, steep climb is still needed to even at least catch up with its competitors.
Specifications
  • Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 (Dual-core, 1.5GHz)
  • Camera: 8MP (Main), 2MP (Front)
  • Display: 4.2” LCD (1280 x 768)
  • Operating System: BlackBerry 10
  • Network: 4G LTE Enabled
  • Memory: 2GB RAM
  • Storage: 16GB Internal, microSD up to 32GB
  • Wireless Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, NFC
  • Physical Interface: micro-USB 2.0, 3.5mm Audio Jack
  • Battery: 1800mAh
  • Dimensions: 130 x 65.6 x 9mm
  • Weight: 137.5g
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