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Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

111 points| shawndumas | 13 years ago |arstechnica.com | reply

99 comments

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[+] manishsharan|13 years ago|reply
I am not falling for BB again !

In my last iteration of smartphone purchase, I bought a latest-at-the-time Iphone 3GS for my wife and the latest-at-the-time Blackberry Bold. Since then I have watched in envy as my wife could get so much done on her phone than I could on my BB. My BB never did much beyond email and BBM ( I love BBM )

In this iteration, I recently placed an order for Nexus 4 and a Iphone 5. maybe if they are still around in 3~4 years from now, sure I could consider going back to BB.

[+] kunai|13 years ago|reply
Did you even read the review? This isn't related AT ALL to the old OS7 Bold or any other Blackberry line, which were awful. BB10 can do much more than an iPhone and be just as productive while providing a rich media experience.
[+] ianb|13 years ago|reply
Out of curiosity, and having never used it, what is cool about BBM?
[+] Osiris|13 years ago|reply
I welcome any competition into the mobile OS market, especially if it brings a refreshing new take on design and user experience.

My devices all run Android and while it's usable, I'm not a huge fan of many aspects of the OS. While I don't plan on getting a BB10 device, I am interested to see if or how its innovations cause other OS vendors to adjust their own user experience.

[+] dmix|13 years ago|reply
I'm fine with the Android OS, still not a fan of the hardware. Although its gotten better, Android phones are still nowhere near the physical build quality of the iPhone 4 (including the S3 which I'm currently using).
[+] easternmonk|13 years ago|reply
Blackberry has done a good job. It may not be iPhone/Android killer but it is definitely at par with the best in the league. Had BB come up with this 2 years back it would have been great. But I am willing to give them a chance. I hope the voice and screen sharing works good.
[+] kunai|13 years ago|reply
Lovely. This is really the first true smartphone OS since webOS that I'm actually excited for. The gestures are a little worrisome, however, with a 4-inch display. I have small hands, and it seems the gestures would require use of two hands...

Another thing I noticed -- it seems like the UI's colors and typefaces were ripped straight from Android's Holo interface. No big deal, just something I noticed.

[+] KeyBoardG|13 years ago|reply
I was put off just in the new BBM, where some options were hidden under the left swipe menu, other the right swipe menu and yet more under the top swipe menu. Not to mention options hidden under the button bar at the bottom. I don't want to spend my time looking all over in apps for an action. They need to set strict guidelines on where things go.
[+] purephase|13 years ago|reply
I sat down with a handset a few months ago with a QA guy at BlackBerry and had basically the same feedback for them. Apparently, it is something they're working on. I haven't seen the OS since launch so I don't know if this was addressed, at all.

They're hardly alone in this regard. iOS/Android suffers from the same problem.

[+] rcb|13 years ago|reply
Does anyone know if BB has the ability to push OS updates direct to customer handsets? Years ago such updates required carrier "approval"/intervention, which meant updates occurred infrequently (usually after significant delay), if ever.

Edit: US carriers, specifically AT&T.

[+] tlack|13 years ago|reply
Anyone got the inside info on why they are waiting so long to release these in America? Should have been available unlocked at launch if they really wanted to regain the hearts and minds of the fickle American consumer.
[+] arbitrage|13 years ago|reply
Is an unlocked phone really that important to the majority of American consumers? They've showed quite readily in the past that they really don't care that much.
[+] scrabble|13 years ago|reply
The original idea was to use the rest of the world as a testing ground to work out any potential bugs in the software prior to releasing in the US.

It could be even worse to release in the US with a critical bug than to release later.

[+] sgt|13 years ago|reply
It's also QNX based, so should be pretty rock solid, being a microkernel based RTOS with a small memory footprint. Also (interestingly), its network stack is based on NetBSD code.
[+] zmmmmm|13 years ago|reply
It's great to see a fully gesture based phone. I've always thought this would be the most natural way to interact with a touch based device, and it's always the gesture based apps and interactions that I enjoy using most on my phone. My only hesitation is whether gestures interfere with normal use of the phone. Will it confuse interactions in the game I am playing with the swipe to go back to the home screen, for example? If it does, it's going to be hugely problematic. But if it's done well it will be the most enjoyable and natural interface out there, I think.
[+] icki|13 years ago|reply
I'd have to agree with you that gesture interactions tend to feel more natural then typical button pressing (e.g. pinch-to-zoom), but can be a little awkward for first time users. A customer who stops by a mobile phone kiosk while walking through their local mall might not know how to handle a BB10 device without assistance from a sales associate. However, gestures often become second-nature, and users rarely find themselves asking "how do I do this again?"

Swipe-upwards to unlock/return to homescreen requires initial contact with the screen's bezel, which should mitigate the number of times this gesture is unnecessarily actuated.

[+] tcdowney|13 years ago|reply
I just found out about their 10k Developer Commitment last Friday and a few close friends and I are scrambling to get a Blackberry native app finished in time for the upcoming submissions deadline. Never having done this before all I can say is that it's been fun! :)

BlackBerry 10 is much nicer than I had anticipated and, although I won't be moving away from Android, I am excited for BlackBerry to make a serious effort at returning to the market. :)

[+] bambax|13 years ago|reply
I'm not sure about gestures (can they be done with one hand?) but the unified inbox ("hub") sounds like a fantastic idea.

I don't understand why I can't see all messages from all my email accounts in one window, together with voice messages and texts (Tweets may be a little overwhelming, but they can be filtered out).

This really sounds great -- although it's probably not hard to replicate on another platform.

[+] compilercreator|13 years ago|reply
I got my Z10 yesterday and I can confirm that the phone (and all the gestures) are completely usable with just one hand. The phone size was selected pretty intelligently. I don't think the UI design would have worked with a bigger phone.
[+] varikin|13 years ago|reply
The unified inbox reminds me of the unified inbox of the Cisco Cius tablet a couple years ago, though the BB10 version looks much better. The one on the Cius didn't support as many services or have such great hooks between email, calender, etc from in the inbox. Though, the Cius did have the ability to look at a contact and see everything from email, text messages, calender, voice mail, recent calls, etc at once.
[+] barista|13 years ago|reply
Windows phone does this unification in a way that works better for me.

All messages (sms, chat, facebook messages) are together All emails are together All social walls (facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc) are together.

You can switch the communication medium i.e. reply to facebook message with an SMS and so on. Of course all of these are filterable and configurable. This seems to work better for me as they are most of the times distinct worlds.

[+] adjin|13 years ago|reply
I thought it has a lot of interesting ideas. Although much of them can be emulated by any other platform, if BB proves to continue innovation especially in the business/corporate sector it could gather quite a following.
[+] muyuu|13 years ago|reply
My old Blackberry Curve 3G, which I use alongside an Android phone, still gives me a battery life of 3 days solid under normal usage.

Will they match that?

[+] malkia|13 years ago|reply
Any word on PlayBook getting the BB10?
[+] scrabble|13 years ago|reply
They've always said that all PlayBooks will receive BB10. Who knows when though.
[+] janlukacs|13 years ago|reply
i think people should give it a chance, too much negativity due to fanboyism.
[+] fusiongyro|13 years ago|reply
Is it fanboyism, or could it instead be:

- I need a phone that works

- I only need one phone

- I don't want a phone from a defunct manufacturer

- App availability is more significant than platform quality

The first one means I don't want to debug your beta product. The second one prevents me from experimentally getting a bunch of different phones and seeing which one I like better. The third gives me pause when dealing with Blackberry, who have been having huge corporate troubles for years. The fourth is a reminder that if I were to switch there are lots of apps I'd be giving up with no replacement (SmartGo Books comes to mind).

The idea that Apple has everyone brainwashed is really quite absurd. Overpriced? Maybe. Overhyped? Probably. Bad? No.

[+] zmonkeyz|13 years ago|reply
It's sad when people hate on every piece of tech that isn't their favorite. If they would have came out with a new Bold with OS 7.5 people would bitch. They develop BB10 and people still bitch.
[+] speeder|13 years ago|reply
Go blackberry!!!!

Become another market for me to sell my stuff \o/

[+] helloamar|13 years ago|reply
I trusted blackberry from the bold 9000, with that trust I got a playbook thinking they will add more apps but after waiting for more than a year I got the iPad4,

Now I have a bold 9900, time to change my phone in a couple of months ,now the bb10 arrives I'm waiting for the apps that keeps my business running if it didn't show up I'm going to get the iPhone