Gadgetory

hey Joshua Carver manager authority what's going on everybody and I do have something to admit lately I've been using the BlackBerry z10 as my main phone remember this phone the original BlackBerry Bold almost four years ago which is an amount of time that equals an eternity in technology however back in those days a majority of people I knew rocked Blackberry phones bbm was the main way of communicating with friends and the bold used to be the biggest phone I ever worked with boy did that change quickly years later we have a touchscreen blackberry and with OS version 10 the hope that this platform can gain back all of the fans lost to iOS and Android so seeing as I have some comparisons to do with the z10 and current top Android devices I wanted to know if it stood a chance does it the short answer is not really but it's a hell of a start and could lead to better days for blackberry this edition is black all around and with a 4.2 inch screen opposite a back covered in an almost rubbery feeling plastic the great thing about the bag is that it's removable giving access to the replaceable battery and SD card slot it's a nice feeling phone too but I think the wait leaves something to be desired here it's not light enough to be considered cheap but it also lacks a certain heft that maybe 5-inch phones typically have that we've become used to considering this is a 4.2 inch screen with 1280 by 768 resolution there really isn't a whole lot to complain about otherwise it's not one of the bigger 1080p screens we're seeing and loving these days but it's adequately bright and the color production does justice to videos pictures and games like Angry Birds you do get a dual-core 1.5 gigahertz Snapdragon processor in there with adreno 2 to 5 graphics so there is plenty of performance to go around little lag is found once you get to the OS I thought that was going to have a bad time with the z10 when it took and does still take quite a while to boot up it's the only real performance issue though honestly it is a pretty big one battery life is a mixed bag I would have no problem texting writing emails and checking Facebook on a fairly constant basis one day and then on another day when I leave my phone in my pocket for a long time it drains quicker than I realize and I'm out of juice before the end of the day it probably has something to do with constant syncing but honestly the consistency is still annoying I guess if you take the average though the 1,800 milliamp hour battery does a decent job at best then finally we have the camera before I get into the software with the 8 megapixel shooter on the back and a 2 megapixel camera on the front you pretty much get what you expect here the rear camera performs pretty well though some pictures have grain even in decent lighting otherwise you get one particular capability called time shift essentially it takes a very fast burst shot and you pick between the various shots to find the one you want bottom line there are plenty of much better cameras out there quality and function wise but the z10 is certainly capable if not overly simplistic alright so now we have blackberry 10 this is a big change from the BlackBerry OS that we might know from before certainly a change from the days of the original bolt brought into the current century with a touchscreen interface you have your apps in the main screens the recent apps screen and blackberry hub running apps from the app screens is pretty straightforward but it's getting back home that is different notice there are no buttons anywhere that is because basically all navigation is done via swipes swipe up from the bottom within any application and it seats your current app in the recent apps screen you can only get a total of 8 running at the same time here but that shouldn't be a problem for most the cool part about this recent apps functionality is that anything put there continues to run in real time so it's kind of like quickly creating a widget blackberry hub is another new function meant to integrate all different services like messaging Google Talk Facebook Twitter and emails into one location it's all in a list format that basically makes you edit every item one by one because manipulating groups of messages can sometimes be a little difficult and cumbersome having everything in one place unifies the notifications which is kind of cool from within any app swipe up but then hold there to see if you have anything new while holding you can swipe to the right to go straight to those messages you don't get previews of your messages though because you actually have to access the hub in order to see them ultimately provided that you keep your inbox is pretty clean the hub is a pretty elegant and nice way of putting all of your messaging needs under one roof of course as an Android user I found myself missing my OS of choice but only one I couldn't find that I depend on the main ones were Spotify for music listening and Google Voice the solution for Google Voice was to use the mobile web version which actually worked out because the built-in web browser is simplistic unobtrusive and actually pretty easy to use putting a bookmark to the mobile Google Voice website on my app screens was a nice workaround mind you this is how blackberry does YouTube as well so remember that any missing app might have a capable web version there's still nothing available for Spotify though for the typical tasks like messaging a web browsing though the z10 is actually a pretty good experience it takes a bit to get used to the swiping navigation but once you get the hang of it you'll be zipping through apps in the hub easily and honestly it's kind of cool since it's supposed to be a messaging Beast the z10 has perhaps one of the best keyboards I've ever used somehow the great experience of the physical keyboards on other BlackBerry models was translated perfectly for this touchscreen the fretts space things out a little making touch typing even easier while predictive text pops up words above the next likely letter of whatever word you're typing just swipe up from that letter to autocomplete it's clear that BlackBerry hasn't lost its touch with messaging keyboards making it the highlight of my experience the only real blemish in my otherwise good messaging experience was no one I know uses bbm anymore so that was kind of a big bummer and so there you have it I do have to admit that blackberry still has a knack for messaging and the typing experience on this phone is one of the best that I've ever had on a touchscreen still if you want to do anything more with BlackBerry 10 it's still lacking primarily because of its lack of apps sure you can find games some old ones that were ported over and functionality like Google Voice requires you to use the web versions which is honestly just a simple workaround still what you do get inside of this phone is pretty nice looks good and functional and for the most part it is able to stand on its own as a smartphone operating system but compared to the big guns like iOS and Android it still has a long way to go however I'm pretty excited to see where they go with it we'll be comparing the z10 to some of androids main players so stay tuned and subscribe to the Android Authority YouTube channel for all the action and remember to keep up with Android because we're your source for all things Android you