Hey guys this is Austin and today I’m here with a review of the
BlackBerry Z10.
Now BlackBerry has pretty much started from scratch
here, not only is this a brand new phone but it’s also a brand new
operating system so is it any good?
To start with let's take a look at the design.
The Z10 is quite similar in size to the iPhone 5 which while
much smaller than most Android phones is a nice size for a lot of
people.
The front looks a bit awkward with large bezels on top and
bottom of the screen however it's a good looking phone and the
backing is made out of a very nice feeling soft touch textured finish.
It's also removable, giving you access to the battery
along with the SIM card and MicroSD card slots.
While it's mostly made of plastic the Z10 feels solid and well built in the hand with
the volume rocker and mute button placed on the right side and the lock
button and headphone jack up top.
The 4.2" screen also looks fantastic with incredibly sharp
detail although it is lacking a bit in brightness.
Specs are also decent with a 1.5GHz dual core processor and 2GB
of RAM along with 16GB of storage.
It's definitely not going to be winning any style awards but I
ended up quite liking the simple, understated design of the phone.
Now you’re getting a look at what the video looks like from the front
facing camera on the Z10 as well as what the audio sounds like in
video mode.
So this also has another camera it’s an 8 megapixel
shooter around back and while the pictures aren’t really anything all
that special they are decent and they do match up pretty well with
other high end smartphones on the market right now.
The video is also good, nothing spectacular but overall it’s
got a good crispness, clarity, motion, all that kind of fun stuff.
Where things get interesting is when you start the phone up.
Gone is the old BlackBerry OS, replaced by BlackBerry 10 which is a massive change.
The interface takes some getting used to but it's fairly well laid
out, you have your most recent apps listed on the main screen, the rest of
your apps over on the other pages and the BlackBerry Hub behind a swipe
from the left.
These are your notifications along with email and texts
rolled into one.
It's an interesting idea that allows you to get to
your important stuff quickly however it can get cluttered if you've got
a lot of emails, tweets, etc.
Instead of having a home button BB 10 relies on gestures to get
around which is actually a very natural way of doing it.
Swipe up from the bottom to close an app and a swipe from
the top will pull up a quick settings menu or specific app settings
depending on where you are.
You can also unlock the phone quickly by swiping all the way up
even when the screen is off which is something I really loved.
That's not to say it's perfect however.
As with any brand new OS there are glitches and rough edges around.
The phone rebooted randomly a couple times and the browser locked up occasionally
needing a force close.
Most of the OS relies on a swipe from the left gesture to go
back however sometimes you have to use a button which just doesn't
make sense to the user.
Nothing ever amounted to a dealbreaker and I'm willing to bet most things will be sorted
soon but overall it does leave an impression of being not quite fully
baked.
On the other hand sometimes BB10 absolutely nails it.
The browser is easily among the best on any platform with snappy loading times,
quick scrolling and even Flash built-in.
It's definitely nice to see this...although I should
warn you that viewing Flash content drains the battery laughably fast.
The keyboard is also excellent, the autocomplete is very smart and
you can even flick words up if it predicts correctly for you.
Most of the default apps are solid including the surprisingly
great Story Maker which will take your images and video and
create a custom video for you that's actually very nicely done.
Unfortunately app support is probably the biggest problem here.
There are quite a few apps in BlackBerry World but most are just plain bad.
There's also a lot missing such as Skype, Netflix, Instagram
and Spotify just to name a few.
As it's a brand new ecosystem I'm sure more apps will be coming
but right now the selection is really limiting.
You can sideload some Android apps but they're not really a good
solution.
The battery life is also seriously lacking, with moderate use
it would just make it through a normal day for me but if this were my main
phone I would always keep a spare battery on me.
The BlackBerry Z10 is a surprisingly good phone.
A lot of what it does it does very well and while the hardware
isn’t anything all that special it does get the job done.
Unfortunately where it runs into issues is with the BlackBerry
10 operating system.
Put simply there are a lot of rough edges here and for the most part
the app support is just very, very disappointing.
While the Z10 is definitely an interesting phone unfortunately
there’s just not a whole lot here that would make me want to recommend
it over something running iOS or Android.
I’m curious to know, what do you guys think?
Is this something that you would ever switch to or do you think it’s just
not quite fully baked yet, definitely be sure to let me know what you
think in the comments below.
If you’re interested in more feel free to check out my last video where I got a hands
on of the brand new Samsung Galaxy S4.
If you enjoyed definitely be sure to leave this
video a thumbs up and if you’re interested in more videos like this be
sure to subscribe.
Anyway guys I will catch you next time!