I’ve recently had the opportunity to play with the brand-new BlackBerry Z10. This is the last ditch attempt from the company formally known as RIM to break back into the mobile industry that they helped develop in the early part of the last decade.
One of the handy things about being in the UK this time around was we got access to the new handset before the rest of the world. It makes sense, considering the United Kingdom is one of the last places where BlackBerry still has a very strong user base. Active subscribers have dropped, as companies have changed to a BYOD system, but there are still many people clinging to BBM and a physical keyboard.
So where to begin? Let’s start with hardware.
This New Generation BlackBerry fits into the second class of BlackBerry devices. In days gone by RIM used to make two distinct types of handsets; cheap ones and good ones. This device is one for the good one category. There feels to be very little play in the device. The build quality is as you would expect a BlackBerry Bold to be. It’s not as dense felling as an iPhone or even a HTC but it is a lot more satisfying to hold than a Galaxy S3 or a Note 2. It’s odd to look at the device in black, considering that it looks like the back of the iPhone 5. Usually when someone looks like the back end of a bus it’s an insult, when something looks like the back of an iPhone, is that a compliment?
The other difference with the Z10 is that it has a textured back. Something typical to the BlackBerry but oddly enough few other manufacturers. But in a world where manufacturers are bringing handsets made of aluminium and glass, plastic just really doesn’t cut the mustard on flagship devices.
As for the rest of the hardware, I have to say I was particularly impressed with the quality screen. In fact while discussing with the member of sales staff, I mentioned that the screen could’ve been some of Samsung’s. Bright vivid colours and a good level of response. Refreshingly in a package that wasn’t gargantuan, as has become the default in the Android world.
The rest of the hardware specifications of the BlackBerry are somewhat underwhelming. Again a manufacturer has chosen the path of Nokia/Microsoft and Apple and decided to focus on experience rather than specification. I completely commend this. The arms race needs to end. Users need to be thought of before megapixels and screen inches.
When it comes to the users, what can BlackBerry 10, the new operating system, offer?
BlackBerry 10 is based on the QNX operating system that underpinned the BlackBerry PlayBook. Supposedly it’s been rebuilt from the ground up specifically for BlackBerry and their new ethos. The way BlackBerry 10 works is very similar to most modern interfaces. This makes sense, given the fact that all they have been able to do the last four years to sit back and watch while everybody else has taken a market share away from them. They’ve learned and they’ve copied in certain respects. A grid based app layout is the only thing that makes sense and until somebody thinks the best way to do it, that’s the way it will stay. Where BlackBerry 10 differs is the fact that you continue to swipe from right to left to go through all of your applications, like iOS, but if you were to swipe from left to right you pull up the multitasking menu.
This has to be the best implementation of on device multitasking that I’ve seen. It reminds me a lot of the Launchpad view in Mac OS X. Getting to see your open applications with a screenshot of that application in the grid layout is more familiar and makes more sense than the way it’s displayed in certain tablet forms of android. This isn’t to say it’s not without its faults. It took me at least a few minutes to figure out that you had more than four apps open that you scroll down to get to the rest of them. Being somebody that rarely closes apps on my devices, I wonder what it’d be like having to scroll down and down and down to 30 or 40 applications to find the one you wanted. If you keep swiping from left to right you eventually bring up the hub.
This new unified inbox is the source of all your communication information. How very useful! It means that you can get your texts, your tweets, your emails and your Facebook messages in one place. This is again one of the things that BlackBerry has done well. There is a pull-down for notifications as well it also gives quick access to certain hardware settings such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as you will find on most builds Android handsets.
BlackBerry 10 wants to be all things to all people.
There is one big inclusion in BlackBerry 10 to centre out from its competitors and that is a built-in partition. A wall between personal life and work life. To help make the lives of stressed IT admins everywhere easier BlackBerry have integrated a separation system where the device can be used by user as a personal device and at the touch of an on-screen button switch to a work device. Things like this make sense and the more and more I see it the more and more I think that it’s going to fail as an option.
My reasons for that is what I’ve observed from users. Can you imagine any executive in the group of 45 years old and above knowing how to switch from personal to work without somehow getting it wrong. Given that the BlackBerry Z10 will change them to learn new things, this is the first big thing that they have to get used to. The fact that this comes without a physical keyboard will be a bit of an issue. The only other system for separating personal and work life that I’ve seen that seems to work would be something like Divide. Having a dedicated app that takes over the entire device, making the work environment in to a dedicated area, like an office, makes sense. Doesn’t get much easier than that. But I digress, back to Blackberry.
It’s time to meet come to some conclusions.
BlackBerry 10 and the BlackBerry Z10 are very amicable attempts at getting back in to the communicator market. If they’ve released this two years ago we be looking at a very different mobile landscape, but we are not. We’re looking at it in a world where 98% of the market is controlled by two players. Two operating systems now control the entirety of the mobile industry. The battle is for third place. That’s where Microsoft seem to be and where RIM sorry BlackBerry (new clothes, new name ), want to be.
With 70,000 apps available on launch, quite a lot of them dreadful, most of them Android ports, it makes me think that they have the potential to do it but they won’t. As it pains me to say BlackBerry’s days are numbered. But there is a ray of hope. I would recommend the BlackBerry Z10 to anybody who was considering buying a Samsung Galaxy S3. As is coming to light this week most of the internal components are the same yet the BlackBerry comes with a more manageable screen size and a better all round operating system presentation. It hasn’t been piled on with bloat to make a fast phone feel sluggish. What Samsung do to Android, frankly, is criminal. Giving uses a proper operating system and a good bit of hardware, that’s what I’m here to recommend. So you want to buy a S3? Buy the Z10. You really want to buy an Android phone? Easy get the Google Nexus 4. Always get the Google Nexus product.
Have BlackBerry done enough to survive? No. Have they done enough to make themselves look like a very good acquisition target? Yes. Given the strength of BlackBerry’s service arm and the fact that the hardware is well renowned and well-designed, tied to a lovely new operating system it makes perfect acquisition target to a disgruntled Android manufacturer who at the moment doesn’t have their own ecosystem, no matter how hard they try.
