- Hey guys, this is Austin.
It is 2017 and Blackberry still exists, but why?
At one point Blackberry was pretty much synonymous
with the word smartphone,
however over the last few years,
they made some questionable decisions.
First up, we have the Blackberry Passport.
Now this is very much sort of the last hoorah
of the Blackberry 10 devices.
As it was still completely manufactured by Blackberry,
it ran their software,
and had a very much Blackberry keyboard.
So this guy was released back in 2014,
however, it's just a little bit different
than the old Blackberries back in the day.
(laughs)
As a size comparison,
this is what the Passport looks like compared
to a Galaxy S7.
While it's not that much taller,
it is so wide, like this is,
that's a crazy crazy phone in the hand.
I've gotta say though, it is unique.
There's definitely no other phone out there
with such a big display
and an actual physical keyboard.
So it's rocking a 4.5 inch, 1440 by 1440 display.
Now it might be a little bit weird
to have a modern smartphone with a square screen,
but in this case it actually does kinda make sense
as having the keyboard on the bottom is sort
of a Blackberry trademark.
In fact actually it might be a Blackberry trademark,
like an actual Blackberry trademark.
(laughs)
Something kind of cool about the Passport is
that the keyboard is actually a touch pad.
So for example, I can use it to scroll up and down this
or maybe swipe left or right, depending on what it is.
I mean of course it has a touch screen,
so that kind of negates a lot of the usefulness
of a touch pad,
but it is a sort of useful feature to have.
(laughs)
I like how before it even lets you get into the phone
you have to read about Blackberry
and how they're a global leader in mobile communications.
Sure guys.
All right, so we are up and running
with the Blackberry Passport.
Even though this phone is a couple years older at this point
it actually has pretty reasonable specs.
So inside it has a Snapdragon 801 processor
paired with three gigabytes of RAM,
and it also has a pretty monstrously sized
3450 milliampere hour battery,
putting a lot of phones even from 2017 to shame.
So when it comes to BB10, it's actually not that bad.
So some things that I like about it
is just how easy it is to multitask.
Everything's very nice and smooth.
It's pretty responsive especially considering
that this is a three year old phone.
When it comes to apps, there are some.
So, for example if you open up the YouTube app,
it's just a web app which is the same
for a fair few of these,
but to be fair stuff like the Twitter app
actually works reasonably well
and you also do have some support for Android apps.
This is done through the Amazon App Store.
So the way it works is there's a virtual version
of Android running on top of BB10.
So if I jump into something like Spotify,
(upbeat music)
It works pretty much as you'd expect.
Some apps don't really take too kindly to the square screen
and generally speaking performance isn't great,
but it does work.
Now, beyond that, you can have some issues.
So for example, a game like Crossy Road,
just completely fails to do anything for me,
but considering that this is an older phone
and it's running sort of a cludgy put together gross version
of Android, the app support is not terrible.
Honestly, there's a lot I really do like
about this Passport.
If it was running an up to date version of Android,
I would actually definitely give this a shot.
Next up we have the Blackberry Priv.
Now this was an interesting phone for one big reason.
It was the first Blackberry to ship with Android
instead of BB OS.
Take a look at the box
and you'll see they promise privilege and privacy.
That is quite the statement to put on your phone.
Crack this one open and you'll see a Blackberry
that looks a little bit different.
So at first glance it looks like a traditional smartphone,
however if you roll it up, roll it up?
It actually does have a full keyboard.
While the Passport is a really wide phone,
the Priv is incredibly tall.
And of course once you slide the keyboard down
it's not that much bigger than an average phone,
and to be fair the hardware here is pretty nice.
It does feel a little bit plastic-y,
even with the fake carbon fiber on the back,
but it feels pretty reasonable in the hand,
especially considering that you do have
that physical keyboard.
I think Blackberry did a pretty good job
of engineering it into the Priv.
So the mechanism feels pretty solid.
If you open it up you can feel just a little bit
of flex in the chassis, but it's not too bad.
But of course, you're getting a very thin smartphone,
not even considering that there is a full keyboard inside.
A physical keyboard is decent.
I don't think it really quite matches up
to some of the earlier Blackberries like the Bold.
I think it's just a little bit mushier than I'd like,
but again, I've been on some software keyboards for years.
So if this is something that's a really big deal to you,
I think the Priv might make some sense,
but honestly, I would probably use it
with the keyboard down all the time.
Something that really jumps out to me is the display.
Not only is 1440p, but it's also OLED,
and it really shows.
The colors are nice, the blacks are dark.
Honestly, I really do like the hardware of this phone.
The Priv was the first Blackberry Android phone,
but it is most certainly not the last.
That's where the DTek 50 comes in.
So this, while it has the Blackberry name on it,
is very much not a true Blackberry.
While this was a launched less than a year ago,
what you're really getting here is a little more
than a re-badged Alcatel Idol 4.
So not only does it not have a way
of getting out of the box.
(rustling)
So gone are most of the traditional sort
of Blackberry things like Blackberry OS
as this guy runs Android,
as well as the physical keyboard.
It very much is exactly what it looks like,
a fairly generic $300 smartphone.
So here we're getting fairly close to stock Android,
so there are of course some Blackberry apps
including BBM, which of course is already available
on Android and iOS anyway right now, as well as DTek.
So this is all about security.
So in theory, this is going to allow you
to amplify the security of a traditional Android device
and it kind of works.
So you can see here that'll give me some sort
of warnings as far as I need to set like a screen lock
or turn on data encryption.
It also reminds me that I am using a Blackberry device
and therefore device hardware is a-ok I guess.
But generally speaking, this is not really anything
that special compared to other devices specifically Samsung
which has a very similar style of software.
So while these phones aren't running Android 7 just yet,
they are at least fully up to date.
So if you check the Android security patch
it's from March 5th which was just a couple weeks ago
from when I'm recording this video
and that's nice to see,
especially since the Priv is coming up on two years old.
Of course it'll be nice to have a newer version
of Android to go along with it,
but at the very least, they are keeping these up to date,
and since it's fairly stock version of Android,
hopefully those updates will continue
for a little while.
So while I don't really recommend these phones,
there's nothing necessarily wrong with Blackberry.
Sure, they're nowhere near as big as they used to be,
but these days, they're making decent Android phones
with solid hardware and some legitimately cool features
such as a physical keyboard.
It might not be for everyone, but I do believe
that there's a place for Blackberry in 2017.
So, would you guys buy a Blackberry?
Let me know in the comments below
and I will catch you in the next one.