Some things
inspire me to blog. It may not happen often, but, when it does it’s hard to stop.
Some of you know me as a pretty avid tech geek, particularly in mobile tech.
I've been a BlackBerry user for many years but that hasn't stopped me from
experimenting with other platforms. At heart, I'm a tech enthusiast and I refuse to be a sheep to any one logo.
Yes, I've used
them all. BlackBerry OS 4, 5, 6, and 7. Android Éclair, Froyo, Gingerbread,
Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean. Apple iOS 1.x through 6.x and Windows
Phone 7, 7.5, and 8. Heck, I still use WebOS from time to time. Yet there's no
platform I currently prefer more than BlackBerry 10.
This is not a decision I came to easily, as I use many of these platforms on a daily basis. I try to
stay objective even though people tend to categorize me as a “BlackBerry guy”. Many
don’t know that I may actually have more Android devices than BlackBerry! (I
would have to do an inventory tally to be sure though). What's more shocking
is, if I was forced to only use one phone, which happily isn't the case, it
would be the BlackBerry Q10. This really is saying a lot considering all the
fantastic options out there.
While I could talk about mobile for hours, it's not something I normally blog about. However, the good folks at Virgin Mobile Canada have given me a reason to by including me on their VM Tester Team for the BlackBerry Q10.
Since January I
have been using the BlackBerry Z10 as my primary personal phone. I did get a
Q10 at launch but it was during a very busy time for me and I was not able to use it to its full potential. Now, thanks to Virgin Mobile, I have a unit with the motivation to put it through some RiViculous testing.
Fit, Feel, and
Finish
The first thing
you'll notice when you pick up the Q10 is the solid build and quality materials
used. Besides the HTC One (and maybe iPhone 5), I can't think of a better built
device. The difference being that the HTC One and iPhone feel like they should to be
protected and kept wrapped in silk linen while the Q10 feels like it’s ready to
take on the harsh environments of everyday life. The woven glass battery door
feels really nice on your fingers and there are no plasticky feeling materials like
those found on Samsung phones.
The size of the
Q10 is perfect for me. I've been pretty concerned with the trend of larger
devices and the advent of phablets. I can't comfortably fit a HTC One or
Samsung Galaxy S4 in my jean pockets. It's not like I wear skinny jeans either.
Heck, even the Z10 took a lot of getting used to and it's significantly smaller
than those flagship Android devices. The
Q10 is roughly the same width as the Z10 but shorter. It measures 119.6mm
x 66.8mm x 10.35mm and weighs 139 grams. Obviously, screen real estate is
sacrificed for the keyboard and shorter dimensions but I generally don't mind the
3.1" display. Sure, Web browsing and video playback is better on larger
displays but I don't do either of those enough to desire a larger screen. The
keyboard takes up a significant amount of space and that is fine with me
because the keyboard is the essence of a BlackBerry. Display colours are vivid
and text shows crisply on the 720 x 720 resolution screen with a 330PPI pixel
density. It’s also worth noting that the
Q10 has a super AMOLED screen as opposed to the LCD found on the Z10.
That Glorious
Keyboard
Oh the keyboard!
The staple of the BlackBerry portfolio. The Q10 is the most glorious rendition
of BlackBerry keyboard yet. It slightly bests that of the previous Bold 9900/9930.
The keys are larger than before and the tactile feel is superb. It is truly a
joy to type on. (So much so that this whole review was typed on the Q10!!) Never have I ever considered typing 2000+
words on a smartphone until I set my hands on the Q10.
I'm impressed with
how easy it is to operate the Q10 with one hand. One-hand usage is key to me as
it allows me to get things done on the go. The Z10 proved to be a bit more
difficult for one-hand usage as my thumb had to stretch to reach the top of the
screen. The ability to swipe up words from the keyboard is a nice touch on the
Z10 but I still prefer hitting the actual physical keys on the Q10. There's
something gratifying about hitting the keys with so much confidence and not having to on autocorrect. The Q10 does offer a word prediction option that is
turned off by default. This word prediction is similar to that on the
BlackBerry PlayBook tablet where suggested words appear on the screen just
above the keyboard that you can tap to select. Honestly, I tried it and found
myself preferring to type out the words rather than select it from the
suggestion bar.
Battery Life
Another highlight
is the Q10 battery life. Simply put, the Q10 has superb battery life for a
modern smartphone. I managed 49 hours of light-moderate usage on a single
charge. I'm sure you can kill the battery much more quickly by enabling mobile
hotspot and with excessive video streaming on LTE but that's expected. This
sort of battery life is quite uncommon on modern smartphones. The Q10 sports a
2100mah removable battery. Note that this is larger than the 1800mah battery found
in the Z10. The impressive battery life can also be attributed to the smaller
screen and black theme, which saves power on the AMOLED screen. Extremely heavy
users and travelers should consider the handy Battery Charger Bundle for the
Q10. It’s my favourite accessory.
User Interface
I'm only going to
spend a short time writing about the BlackBerry Hub because it's nothing new to
BlackBerry 10. The Hub aggregates messages from your email accounts, BBM, text
messages, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. into one location. You can
customize what can be viewed in your hub. It is really easy to use when you're
acquainted with it but there is a slight learning curve for BB10 virgins.
The swipe gestures
are second nature for me since I have been using the PlayBook and Z10 for a
long time now. Users new to the platform may require a few days to acclimate to swiping instead of pressing home or back buttons but, when adjusted, they may
find themselves trying to swipe anything and everything. That includes
calculators and microwaves in my case.
Camera
As a multimedia
device, the Q10 pulls its weight. I'm very picky and particular when it comes
to cameras and audio players. I have yet to find a phone good enough to
completely replace standalone cameras and music players. That’s still the case.
That's fine though. Still, the modern smartphone has essentially decimated the
low-end compact camera segment. In many cases, smartphone cameras are good
enough for everyday scenarios. The Q10 is no different with its 8MP BSI camera
and 5-Element F2.2 lens. The Time Shift option is neat but I never use it. I
would find a feature like optical image stabilization a lot more useful. It's a good enough camera for most people,
most of the time. Maybe it isn't as good as, say, the Samsung Galaxy S4 or HTC
One cameras, but those still fall under the "good enough" camera
category. The Q10 camera is at least comparable. One thing’s for sure, you
won't find professional photographers shooting weddings with smartphone cameras
any time soon. Like I said, that's totally okay. There's no real easy way to
get around the physical limitations behind the optics and sensor size within
the constraints of a smartphone. I’d love to ramble on about photography gear
but I’ll save that for another blog post.
Smartphone cameras have come a long way. The Q10 is a prime example.
Just don’t expect miracles because having a camera on a phone is for
convenience more than anything. But like they say, the best camera is the one
you have on you. And who doesn’t always have their smartphone on them? For sample photos taken with the Q10 click here.
Multimedia
The built-in media
player, again, is comparable to its class. I enjoyed the fact that it supports
FLAC music files. The audio quality through headphones is respectable. It
sounds like it uses the same Qualcomm WCD9310 DAC as the Z10. This is also the
DAC used in the Samsung Galaxy S4. I will choose not to nitpick here as most
people are content with using smartphones as MP3 players. The Q10 is a very
capable video player, supporting a wide variety of formats. Of course the Q10’s smaller screen size may
be an issue for those who frequently view videos on their phone, though, I never watch
long videos on smartphones so this does not bother me.
This leads me to
one of my favourite features, the HDMI-output. I thoroughly enjoy the HDMI-out
capability on the Q10. This feature has become essential for me as I often
output to televisions or projectors. I use my PlayBook to stream video to my TV
as I don't have cable. I could do the same with the Q10. DLNA support in
BlackBerry 10 is another bonus for those who have a DLNA enabled TV.
It’s Still a
Phone
As a phone, it
operates as one would expect. BlackBerry is known for their great call quality
and cellular reception. The Q10 is no different. Voice conversations are crisp
and clear and the speaker phone is loud and clear. (On a side note, I find it
amusing how brief the “phone” portion of a smartphone review is these days). Signal and reconnect times are good. Actually,
I find it superior to the Z10 in this regard. I commute on the subway system in
Toronto so I often go underground and lose signal. I find that the Q10
reconnects slightly faster from loss of signal than the Z10. Still, I find
legacy BlackBerry devices, like the Bold 9780, the champions of acquisition of
signal and connect times.
The BlackBerry 10
operating system is absolutely solid. If you used older BlackBerry OSes, you
may be familiar with the "spinning wheel" and resorting to
battery-pulls. Those are the days of the past as BlackBerry 10 is more stable
than any mobile platform I've used. You can thank the QNX micro-architecture
for that. The Q10 features a 1.5Ghz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor
with 2GB of RAM, which is not cutting edge but it's no slouch either. BlackBerry has never been about the specs
race. BlackBerry 10 runs flawlessly on this hardware and I am not left longing
for beefier specs.
Oh SnApps!
There is still an
"app-gap" compared to Android and iOS but this gap is closing at a steady
pace. To be completely honest, the apparent lack of apps never really bothered
me. The apps I use the most are available on BlackBerry 10. I most frequently
use email, Twitter (native and Blaq), BBM, the Toronto FC App, Maps, and
various news and weather apps. As you can tell, I'm pretty easy to please when
it comes to Apps. I have no time to throw birds into space to make pigs
explode. Skype works well enough but I must say BBM video works so much better.
Personally, the only app that I am still waiting for is the Sirius-XM Radio
app. Two notable apps that are still missing on BlackBerry 10 (at least officially as of this post) are Instagram and Netflix. You can easily sideload Instagram onto BlackBerry 10 though. I did, but I can't be bothered to use it. I wanted to mention one built-in feature that I find more useful than any third party app. It's called Instant Action and it is exclusive to all BlackBerry 10 QWERTY keyboard devices. (In other words, the Q10 and soon to be Q5). Instant Action allows you to start typing anywhere on the home screen and it will start performing that action without having to open a specific app. For example, you can type "email Vic" and it will begin composing an email to Vic. Another super useful one is typing "tweet" followed by the text you want to Tweet and you can send that Tweet directly from the home screen.
Wrapping Up
The Q10 is a
productivity and communications tool first and foremost. If it wasn't, it
wouldn't be a BlackBerry. I can't wholeheartedly say it is the device for
everyone, because it's not. Some people want more screen real estate. Some want
to get lost in endless libraries of apps. Some want what their friends have. I
want something that will allow me to get things done the way I want. I have
plenty of toys in my toy chest. I don't foresee my Q10 collecting dust anytime
soon.
So where do I go
from here? Have I found the device that I will settle down with? Well, yes and
no. If I were limited to one device this would be the one I choose. Hands down.
When my workplace deploys BES 10.1 I can finally use BlackBerry Balance to
separate my work and personal data on my phone. The freedom of carrying around
just one phone can be a luxury at times. On the flip side, I'm RiViculous and
gadgets make me giddy. Being able
experience innovation as it unfolds is a joy.
The Q10 won’t be the last smartphone I own. It probably won’t stop me
from carrying around multiple devices either. It will, however, define the
benchmark of what a modern QWERTY physical keyboard smartphone should be. Do I
recommend the Q10? Absolutely, but it’s not for everyone. For “BlackBerry
People” who value the best typing experience and need to get things done efficiently,
this is the device to get. It does many things well. Users who switched away from BlackBerry but miss the keyboard may have reason to return because of the BlackBerry 10 platform. Users who prefer the
full-touch screen smartphone experience likely wouldn’t consider the Q10 anyway
no matter what rationale you may provide. In short, there’s a place in the market for
the Q10. It may not cater to the largest demographic but it is in no way
insignificant.
Feel free to leave a comment.
Follow me on Twitter @isRiViculous
More photos of the Q10 can be found on my Flickr page.
A special shout out to Virgin Mobile Canada. Follow them on Twitter @virginmobilecan
A special shout out to Virgin Mobile Canada. Follow them on Twitter @virginmobilecan
