Gadgetory

they look an awful lot alike but as the saying goes don't judge a smartphone by its bezel if you're still with us after that awful joke stick around we're going to be putting one of the best of Android up against the best of BlackBerry 10 I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is HTC One versus blackberry z10 we like to narrow our focus when we're talking about devices on two different platforms so we'll keep this comparison limited to five categories build UI camera ecosystem and some test notes we praised the BlackBerry for the sturdy quality of its hardware in our full review and that looks to have been well-earned praise the rugged plastic z10 has held up nicely in the months since we reviewed it though in all honesty that might have more to do with how often we've used it than how durable it is the HTC One with its aluminum body certainly catches the eye more easily than does the blackberry z10 part of that is due to the silver color on our one here but the difference extends to material choice as well which has a big effect on feel in hand dimensionally speaking these devices are nearly identical in thickness around the nine millimeter mark and at 137 grams for the blackberry and 143 grams for the one they're nearly the same weight as well but the ones aluminum unibody is smooth almost too smooth in the hand while the BlackBerry's soft touch back cover clings to the skin that means the BlackBerry feels a little less premium a little more common than the piece of art that is the HTC One but it also means you're less likely to drop it and less likely to care if you do unlocking the screens which we have to do with a button on the one but which the z10 lets us do with a gesture we see another big difference in terms of displays the screen on the BlackBerry z10 is a 4.2 inch IPS LCD at a resolution of 1280 by 768 that makes for a pixel density of 356 PPI while the SLC d3 on the HTC One is a 4.7 inch full 1080p panel kicking out an absurdly high 468 PPI that doesn't mean we can make out Jaggi lines or other evidence of pixelation on the BlackBerry's display not at all it does mean though that we have much more room to work with on the one and colours also appear much more vibrant on the Android device the z10 s display is also much warmer with White's appearing much closer to beige than the pure White's on the one though each displays blacks look equally deep at full brightness you have to look past the pixels and delve into the software to get the full picture of how different these smartphones really are each of them is packing a pretty unique user experience of course we're familiar with the Android jelly bean load on the one but HTC's new sense 5 layer brings a lot of newness to the experience in the form of a massive aesthetic overhaul and the addition of the social and news heavy blinkfeed while using the one is a familiar experience it's not without a slight learning curve as you adapt to the way sense 5 does things if you haven't used BlackBerry's new BB 10 platform on the other hand the z10 zzyx perience is not a familiar one blackberry takes the homescreen app drawer notification area model and flips it on its head the app drawer is off to the right a context-sensitive settings shade is accessible from the top notifications live off to the left in the BlackBerry hub and the home screen has been converted into a canvas for what blackberry calls active frames which are half icon half widget hybrids representing currently running apps the whole shebang takes some getting used to but after a while you start to appreciate the value of the constantly accessible hub with its peak gesture as well as the home screen with its webOS like cards for buttonless task management there are some similarities here to HTC wasn't about to be left out of the somehow still popular cards metaphor so its redesigned the task manager to include 9 app hosting cards for sense 5 and each of these software loads also features a very usable keyboard sense 5s stock keypad is easily the most usable we've seen from an Android OAM and we also enjoy the holo like highlights on each button as we type BlackBerry's keyboard appears much more conventional until you start typing on it the predictive text software allows you to flick words right from the keyboard up into the typing field resulting in a much more efficient one-handed typing experience once you get used to it finally blackberry has implemented some specific optimizations to the z10 in order to play to its strengths while differentiating itself from the competition specifically we're talking about the enterprise centric features like the server dependent blackberry balance work and personal dividing wall on the z10 as well as its blackberry protect security software these features can be replicated to a degree on the Android device but they're available out of the box on the blackberry each OS is snappy and responsive and neither feels prone to crashes or excessive lag app launch times are consistently faster on the HTC One which is either a consequence of its quad-core Snapdragon 600 being more advanced than the BlackBerry's dual-core Snapdragon s4 or better optimized software or both it's not the RAM which stands at two gigs on each device but while we're talking memory we should mention that the z10 features a microSD slot for storage expansion up to an additional 64 gigs while the HTC One is stuck at 32 or 64 gigs depending on which model you buy there's no expansion slot here not that you have much opportunity to fill up the BlackBerry z10 storage unless you're a media hound blackberry got off to a great start filling its new BlackBerry app world launching the c10 with over 70,000 available apps but many were ported from older versions of Android delivering a less than stellar experience and the app world was also missing some major titles big names like Angry Birds and Kindle were there but they were few and far between a few months later we're still essentially in the same place though the app world has grown to include over 100,000 titles big gaps remain to fill even Windows Phone finally sports Pandora and Spotify and of course they've been on Android for ages but they're absent on BlackBerry Instagram of course isn't here the Facebook and Twitter apps were built by blackberry and have received awful reviews on the App world due to their bare-bones nature Shazam isn't here stitcher isn't here etc etc that doesn't mean there's no hope for blackberry quite to the contrary the app selection is exploding and hopefully that growth rate will continue as blackberry puts out more devices and keeps landing million unit orders for the time being though the bb10 app ecosystem is still flat and without apps offerings like content matter a lot less for a new smartphone user or someone upgrading from an older blackberry the z10 still makes sense for someone used to a wider array of apps like an Android or iOS user though we can't recommend the new blackberry over the HTC One and its powerhouse Google Play Store not yet blackberry was pretty good at the fundamentals of mobile phones that is to say phone calling in its heyday and we found that to extend to the z10 as well calls were clear enough and the speakerphone was even a mite louder than we've come to expect from smart phones that is to say until the HTC One came along the one trounces not just the z10 but every other smartphone in recent memory when it comes to voice calls part of that is the boom sound speaker phone setup with its dual amplified front firing speakers the one is a much louder and clearer device and loudspeaker mode than the z10 but the earpiece on the one is also clearer and it's noise cancellation is better there are plenty of variations in camera performance to the ultrapixel camera on the HTC One is lower in resolution at 4 megapixels but its unique approach to mobile photography means it's low-light performance is astronomically better the one also uses a wider angle lens to capture more of a scene than the BlackBerry's 8 megapixel shooter and colors are cooler closer to life than on the z10 the image is also markedly sharper and given a steady hand the BlackBerry's battery life disappointed us in our early review but a subsequent software update is said to have improved that situation gravely we haven't run extended comparisons but this is truly a mixed bag on paper the BlackBerry's 1800 milliamp hour battery pack is a full 500 milliamp hours junior to the battery and the HTC One but the latter's is embedded whereas the blackberries is user replaceable software update or no you'll probably still want a spare battery with you if you're a power user carrying the BlackBerry z10 and it's nice to have that option one phone is an eleventh-hour last-ditch effort from an enterprise company trying to liven up its corporate image and the other is a Hail Mary attempt at introducing a premium feel to the commoditized Android space from a similarly beleaguered manufacturer these devices have creators with a lot in common but the products themselves would almost have to strain to be more different it's not every day a consumer will be weighing these options together but when it does happen the choice will be between two strong products hailing from two very different territories which choice the buyer makes will probably be determined by whether he or she needs to wear a suit or a sweatshirt to the office but maybe just maybe these devices will start blurring those traditional lines just a little bit folks we have a whole lot more on both the HTC One and the BlackBerry z10 visit us at pocketnow.com follow us on all our social feeds subscribe to us here on YouTube throw us a like if you liked the video leave us a comment if you have something to say and thank you for watching we'll see you next time you