Gadgetory

we've compared it to its Android and Windows Phone competition and spent almost two weeks getting to know it now it's time to find out if the new BlackBerry is everything it's maker desperately needs it to be I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is our full review of the BlackBerry z10 so taking a first look at the Z tens build you can see why comparisons to the iPhone 5 design may be inevitable but in person the new BlackBerry is very much its own device with its own identity it sits nicely in the hand with the machined stainless-steel volume buttons resting right under the thumb along with the handy mute and voice control key in the middle the feel in hand is good combining with the 9 millimeter thickness and the stippled rubber of the battery cover for a feel that's substr d but not brick like our unit came with a nice blackberry case - which did a good job of stroking our nostalgia the 4.2 inch display is more prone to fingerprints than other screens we've tested recently but it delivers a sharp looking picture at 356 PPI underneath it all is a 1.5 gigahertz dual-core processor backed up by two gigs of RAM and 16 gigs of storage expandable to an additional 64 gigs via micro sd and the radio load includes LTE which we always appreciate in all we're looking at a fairly typical hardware portfolio in a package that feels very nice in the hand the new BlackBerry 10 user interface is kind of a mashup of traditional paradigms like the app lists and newer ideas like the active frames in the homescreen these cards depict recently used apps that are running in the background and they can almost serve as pseudo widgets if the developer has enabled that functionality if not they're just minimized app icons they change position depending on what's been accessed most recently which makes sense but they're constantly moving as a result which not everyone will appreciate another loved it or hated feature of bb10 is its gesture based interface necessary on a device that doesn't feature a back or a home button it also lets you do things like unlock the screen without using the power standby key up top which is a nice touch the new BlackBerry keyboard benefits from the new emphasis on sliding letting you flick words into place with very smart predictive software though it's more useful in one hand than two-handed use gestures are probably most useful in terms of the peak functionality which lets you quickly check your inbox to see what kind of a notification you've received and if you want to deal with it without having to leave the app you're currently in if you do decide to answer notification you enter probably the best asset blackberry 10 has to offer the hub this is where all notifications go from alarms to emails to texts to third-party app alerts like Facebook IMS and Google chats it's the same aggregated inbox that Blackberry became famous for dressed up for modern times it's really nice and probably our favorite aspect of this new platform finally there's the app conversation which is just loaded with butts the new BlackBerry launched with 70,000 apps but not a lot of big-name titles like Netflix and Skype but they're coming soon but are you willing to wait that's the most important question in the app discussion and the answer will help tell you whether you want the z10 or not the z10 is a fairly middle-of-the-road smartphone when it comes to the fundamentals voice calling is average with quality good on our end over both speaker and earpiece but colors said we sounded a little fluffy like we were talking through a thin blanket reception in Toronto Ontario on bail and in the Greater Boston area on AT&T was good from HSPA to LTE with good data speeds - in terms of the interface the z10 runs smoothly with almost no stuttering or lag the browser performs well on benchmarks and in normal use it's fine we like that it still features flash which isn't quite dead yet but it's not without its quirks our test unit also has some basic bugs like auto-rotate being too sensitive or GPS being slow to lock on and we didn't appreciate that turn-by-turn navigation locking up on us while driving but like it or not these are the kind of bugs you have to expect with any brand new platform so no one should be surprised we should also note that some of the issues we were experiencing may have been the result of a defective review unit which Blackberry promptly swapped for us for the full story on that please see the full written review at pocketnow.com the 8 megapixel camera is another middle-of-the-road attribute of the z10 in normal lighting it's not bad though its results are a little on the soft side and we wish its field of view or wider like a lot of smartphones if you take the light away it does pretty poorly there's a small array of features in the viewfinder and BlackBerry's time shift mode is a cute gimmick video is sharp in 1080p but a little bouncy even with stabilization turned on in all it's neither awful nor outstanding it's just an average smartphone shooter sadly the stock 1800 milliamp hour battery isn't quite up to all this stress it gets us through most days with moderate use but any kind of prolonged heavy use sends endurance plummeting you're gonna want to invest in spare batteries if you're a power user there's a lot of excitement about the new BlackBerry and if you're cynical it's not easy to see why the new platform is lacking a lot of apps its software is not quite fully cooked and the z10 hardware is pretty average but it's also a collection of very good ideas in terms of the interface married to the messaging excellence that's made blackberry a household name and mixed with some impressive momentum right out the gate the new BlackBerry isn't perfect and it'll have a hard time gluing those already invested in more mature platforms like Android iOS and Windows Phone but if you're upgrading from an old Blackberry or feature phone you value a solid messaging experience and a fluid UI and you're willing to wait possibly a long time for some major applications you could definitely do worse than the BlackBerry z10 we give it a 7 out of 10 folks I hope you enjoyed our video review of the BlackBerry z10 be sure and check out the full written review at pocketnow.com for much more detail follow us in the links in the description below so you don't miss any future content and be sure and check out our comparisons and other blackberry 10 content once again at PocketNow thanks for watching and we'll see you next time