Gadgetory

every so often I pick up the blackberry q10 we have cured the office and I'm captivated by a few really compelling features that a handful of advantages that that make me want to carry blackberry again as my daily driver but then I'm confronted by some of the things the platform can't do and I'm reminded of just why it can't be my daily driver well those ups and downs have been ported almost entirely to BlackBerry's new flagship the Z 30 and that's what we're here to talk about I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow this is the BlackBerry z30 and here's what we love and what we don't it's always kind of a bummer to end a video on a list of Downers so for this one we're going to get the bad stuff out of the way first some of this will be familiar to those of you who've seen our reviews of blackberry z10 and q10 for new viewers follow us on the feeds so you don't miss future videos from pocket now on the software side the number one sticking point with bb10 continues to be say with me the apps I know we're beating a dead horse here so we won't dwell on this but even in the curated front page view of the BlackBerry app world there's just that much here it's not like the situation with Windows Phone which is managed to fill many of the high profile slots here there are still big gaps with a lot of big-name titles missing so while you might be okay if the c30 is your first smartphone if you're coming from any other ecosystem you're going to be sorely disappointed in the lack of native apps and speaking of native titles even some of the out-of-the-box software needs work for every wonderfully crafted app like the clock or the compass there's something like maps which is just horrid in terms of functionality and friendliness voice control is still thin on features and speech-to-text is hit and miss at best little things like text manipulation are more cumbersome than they should be and some no-brainer features like mark all as read in the hub are still annoyingly non-existent we've been waiting almost a year for blackberry to fix some of these and the weight is getting a little old in exchange for these shortcomings though blackberry 10 gives you one of the most fluid and fun interfaces around granted that's an opinion from an admitted fan of gestures but even if you're new to swiping your way through your smartphone rather than just tapping BlackBerry's approach is more intuitive than some others using the z30 has a flow to it that's efficient and enjoyable all at once a combination I haven't experienced since the glory days of Palms webOS and the app gap is a bit easier to deal with if you're willing to do a little legwork the latest version of blackberry tends Android runtime supports jellybean apps and thanks to the awesome BlackBerry developer and fan community particularly at crackberry.com it's relatively easy to sideload those apps onto your device tinkerers will be pleased to hear that many major titles are available with more coming at a regular clip and if your app needs are basic you might be able to find a gap filler without resorting to apks apollo is a good example a third-party app for Pandora which does a really nice job and even if you're stuck using native shortcuts like the browser for YouTube there's still a silver lining here audio continues to play while the video is minimized making multitasking just a little bit easier so from the comprehensive and quick system-wide search to the intelligent active frames that minimize apps into de-facto widgets to the new lock screen notification previews and the new notification banners to the outstanding predictive text of the software keyboard to the hub which ties it all together blackberry 10 is a very smart very easy to use interface that makes a lot of sense and one which frankly doesn't get the respect it deserves one of the reasons for that it may be due to BlackBerry's hardware which was pretty unremarkable on the z10 and unfortunately even less remarkable on the Z 30 while the newer device adds a little bit of personality to what essentially resembled reference Hardware on the z10 it's not an exciting personality the rounded corners conflict with the bright line delineation of the silver chin and the 170 gram mass makes it seem fatter than it actually is at nine point four millimeters the design is neither inspired complexity nor elegant simplicity it's just there it looks more like a generic smartphone from two years ago rather than the new flagship of a resurgent platform even the glass weave on the back can't save it from its near total blindness fortunately aesthetics are relative and if you find the XIII's casing appealing well there's a lot to like within it - first of all it's comfortable to hold that soft back and the rounded corners make for a nice in hand feel despite the weight the five inch Super AMOLED display may only be 720p but it renders gorgeous colors the batteries embedded but it's a big one at over 2,800 milliamp hours there's a removable microSD card for storing media and photos taken with the eight megapixel camera which doesn't like exposure extremes and could use a friendlier viewfinder but it does a nice job in most lighting conditions and little touches like the dedicated mute and voice command key and of course the traditional red notification LED round out a phone that gets the job done in a uniquely BlackBerry kind of way the z30 isn't for everyone but neither is it for no one there's a lot here that's easy to like and a lot more that makes us hopeful for what blackberry might show us in 2014 folks that's my last video for 2013 hope you enjoyed it stay tuned for a lot of coverage in 2014 starting with CES 2014 please join us for that visit us at pocketnow.com and before you go anywhere is drop us a like and leave a comment if you have something to say I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for watching all of our videos this year if there are a few you missed you know where to find them but sincerely thank you very much for your support and we'll see you next year you