Friday, April 3, 2015

Blackberry Passport Review

Blackberry Passport


 

Blackberry Passport

 Many, many articles have been written about BlackBerrys fall from grace; about how it completely failed to read and respond to a changing market, and the sequence of poor judgment calls that transformed its product line from a dominant cultural force into a vaguely unpleasant memory. This is a company that managed to alienate its core user base, eliminate the feature they loved most, and not understand for years what it had been doing wrong. The post-decline BlackBerry product line has had more misses than hits and the appeal of the platform has all but evaporated.
And still, the company isnt dead. Still, there are people who cling to their old phones or cry that the ones theyve had to move to just dont feel right. Still, there are people who desperately want the company to release a phone that feels and functions just like a classic QWERTY BlackBerry and will race to buy it as soon as that happens.

Our Reviews

The Passport is the best BlackBerry 10 device you can buy, and comes with a number of flagship-caliber specs. But its odd shape and size, as well as its weird keyboard, may be a turnoff for many. At 128 x 90.3mm, the phone really is as wide as it seems -- its wider than most large-screened phones on the market -- but BlackBerry insists this is a feature rather than a setback. Because its using a 4.5-inch square display thats 30 percent wider than an average 5-inch phone, the company claims youll read up to 60 characters per line and get a better viewing experience. In a way, thats true: I enjoyed reading articles and e-books on the Passport because text didnt have to wrap or get cut off as often, but the trade-off was an awkward one-handed fit and more frequent vertical scrolling. As I mentioned in the introduction, the Passport keyboard is unlike any other Ive tried on a smartphone. This isnt simply a matter of me going back to my roots as a BlackBerry owner years ago and getting reacquainted with the traditional layout used on the Bolds and Curves; I have to learn a brand-new design. Lets get the obvious out of the way: Nobody is moving to BlackBerry for its robust ecosystem of apps. To make up for the fact that developers simply arent rushing to make BB10 apps, the company has done the best it can to provide enough meaningful programs and content for its users. Now on version 10.3 of its OS, BlackBerry has come a long way from when BB10 debuted a year and a half ago, but its not far enough to be competitive. Unfortunately, its instead a hodge-podge of options that confuses most users: two app stores and a method of side loading Android 4.3 (or lower) apps. Look, if youre in the market for a smartphone with a great camera, BlackBerry has never been worthy of your consideration. Its simply been too focused on wooing corporations and productivity-minded customers to really put much effort in its imaging assets. Ever since BB10 came out, however, the phone maker has changed its tune and pushed out nicer cameras with higher resolution; the Q10 had an 8MP shooter when it came out last year, and BlackBerry is bumping up the quality here with a 13MP rear camera. (The 2MP selfie cam isnt worth writing home about, but it certainly could be worse.)

Specification


NETWORK-Technology-GSM / HSPA / LTE
                     2G bands-GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
                     3G bands-HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
               HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100
                     4G bands-LTE 850 / 900 / 1800 / 2100 / 2600
               LTE 700/800/850/900/1700/1800/1900/2100/2600 
                    (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 17, 20)
                    Speed-HSPA, LTE
                    GPRS-Yes
                     EDGE-Yes

LAUNCH-Announced -2014, June
                Status-Available. Released 2014, September

BODY-Dimensions-128 x 90.3 x 9.3 mm (5.04 x 3.56 x 0.37 in)
             Weight-196 g (6.91 oz)
              Keyboard-QWERTY
              SIM-Nano-SIM
  - Capacitive touch 3-row BlackBerry keyboard

DISPLAY-Type-IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
                  Size-1440 x 1440 pixels, 4.5 inches (~453 ppi pixel density)
                  Multitouch-Yes, up to 10 fingers
                  Protection-Corning Gorilla Glass 3

PLATFORM-OS-BlackBerry 10.3 OS
                       Chipset-Qualcomm MSM8974AA Snapdragon 801
                       CPU-Quad-core 2.26 GHz Krait 400
                       GPU-Adreno 330

MEMORY-Card slot-microSD, up to 128 GB
                    Internal-32 GB, 3 GB RAM

CAMERA-Primary-13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, optical image stabilization, LED flash
                  Features-Geo-tagging, face detection, HDR
                  Video-1080p@60fps
                  Secondary-2 MP, 720p

SOUND-Alert types-Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
                Loudspeaker-Yes, with stereo speakers
                3.5mm jack-Yes

COMMS-WLAN-Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, hotspot
                  Bluetooth-v4.0, A2DP, LE
                  GPS-Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS
                  NFC-Yes
                  Radio-FM radio with RDS
                  USB-microUSB v2.0 (SlimPort)

FEATURES-Sensors-Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
                      Messaging-SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM, BBM 6
                      Browser-HTML5
                      Java-Yes, MIDP 2.1
              - BlackBerry Assistant
                    - BlackBerry maps
                    - Organizer
                    - Document viewer
                    - Photo viewer/editor
                    - Video editor
                    - MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+/FlAC player
                    - DivX/XviD/MP4/WMV/H.264 player
                    - Voice memo/dial
                    - Predictive text input

BATTERY-Non-removable Li-Ion 3450 mAh battery
                  Stand-by-Up to 432 h (2G) / Up to 444 h (3G)
                  Talk time-Up to 18 h (2G) / Up to 23 h (3G)
                  Music play-Up to 84 h

MISC-Colors-Black, White, Red