Gadgetory

we reviewed blackberry ten to one too long ago you said we updated that coverage with the blackberry classic review last month and we even took it to CES too late you said we told you we couldn't get a blackberry Passport no excuses you said well congratulations thanks to AT&T you're finally getting your way I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow here with the AT&T blackberry passport unboxing and first look the story begins as all unboxings do with the Box a big one in this case a Borg cube of a package that says rectangles are for conventional phones and this Blackberry is no conventional phone let's put it aside for a second though as we take a quick look at the box contents which I'm happy to report are nicely packaged into individual cells kind of like the Yoda phone - we took a look at in January even with all the challenges at blackberry the company certainly hasn't forgotten how to present a product and in a rare show of restraint AT&T didn't really mess with him the wall wart is BlackBerry branded the included earbuds bring a deluxe feeling flattened cable and a curious ear gel design and some of the paperwork even has its own little impenetrable box that took me way too long to figure out how to open coming back to the passport itself let's get this out of the way here is your obligatory shot with a real passport lol oMG et Cie peeling off the protective film on the back cover gives us a first touch impression of the mat slightly rubberized finish and combined with the heavy weight almost 200 gram mass it feels very well made just like the classic did rather than a full panel removable back cover there's an access plate above the fret concealing the Semin micro SD card slot it's a clever way of keeping the sides free of ports and other penetrations and I like it up front the four and a half inch square display is protected by a film bearing a reminder that texting and driving is a stupid idea this is true as you can see the AT&T variant is a little different than the global version and not just thanks to the silk-screened Deathstar a silver mid plate encircles the whole device and the corners are more rounded reminiscent of the classic those looking for a more edgy modern design might be a little letdown but this is good news for in hand comfort as the corners won't dig into the palm and the keyboard Holly geez you guys the keyboard I was straight-up scared to start using it because of the way the spacebar horns in on the bottom row it looks bizarre but I was surprised how quickly that stopped bothering me in less than five minutes if you're wondering the key feedback offers more travel and a softer kind of click eNOS than any other smartphone it's like using one of those low noise office keyboards with silent switches from back of the day and it feels incredible the jury's still out on the punctuation row being stuck on the display we'll see how this goes in a longer look of course finally the software is blackberry 10 dot 3.1 with all the active frame universal search and blackberry hub action you can handle for my thoughts on this latest blackberry software check out our blackberry classic video review here on YouTube and Adam doubts follow-up coverage at pocket now and keep in mind this video is not a review but just a first look for further thoughts on the BlackBerry passport for AT&T stay tuned for Joe Levi's impressions coming next week if videos like this or what get your very blackened subscribe and give us a thumbs up here on YouTube and please visit us at pocketnow.com for tech news of a more textual nature until next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter reminding you to keep those thumb exercises up because the smartphone qwerty keyboard isn't quite dead yet thanks for watching folks we'll see you next time you