My BlackBerry PRIV Review
Hi guys, I literally never review anything. This is my first crack at it, I normally just surf and view opinions before buying something that really interests me.
2 days ago I bought a Priv for 14 000 Rand from a Carrier Cash. That's a lot of money.
To offset the cost I sold my BlackBerry Passport.
Iv been using the Priv now for 2 days and let's all not fool ourselves, this phone is a generation behind the Passport.
Simple things like duplicating notifications in the hub, my passport had 1 continuous notification per interaction or conversation, now I have 7 or 8 from the hub for that conversation.
There's no file manager.. Really? Are you punking me right now?? Seriously?? No file manager?? No biggy downloaded one from playstore but it's not as good as blackberry 10s manager..
No sound profiles.. Now this.. I have no comments.. Every single phone from black and white to blocks had sound profiles.. Silent , meeting , etc. I see the profile is embedded into the volume keys which is slick if you into that, im subjective and just prefer to click on the profile I like.
The battery life is atrocious.. Man you have no idea how pathetic this battery is. I'm getting 6 hours battery life. As I'm texting now I have just lost 2 percent instantly and iv done all the battery saver techniques so please don't mention it.
The hub has no pinch?? Seriously? Man only when you take these things out of your life do you realise how important there were, those little experiences that make life so easy and so efficient. Also I can't click on the hub icon on the side to mark it as read.. Instead I have to go into the notification manually. Sucks. The hub is sluggish and slow, from blackberry 10 you going to notice it badly and you going to feel it and it will annoy you occasionally.
The major thing I want to complain about is how hot this device gets, here in South Africa the weather isn't cool or cold, it's hot! So it makes holding your mobile phone uncomfortable. The device gets quite toasty from doing normal things like sending an email , bbming whatsapp. Etc.
This is a serious issue and needs to be fixed. This has the potential to be a deal breaker for most.
The software is good, but the playstore suddenly started not downloading my files or updating anything , something about background data restriction?? Forgive me for being data conscious, but that set me back, I had to factory reset my phone and re download everything again to get it to work.. Absolute nightmare. Also I noticed 3 gig of Ram on Android is .. Well.. Acceptable. This system is taxing on the cpu , no wonder android guys are specs junkys and keep craving the latest cpu and gpu because quite frankly the apps eat Ram like you cannot believe, example. My BlackBerry Passport always had 1.5 to 1.4 gb ram available. I couldn't finish the 3 gig ram. It was impossible. That may explain why the phone is sometimes sluggish, there's no fluidness to it and please note, I do not play games etc, im an enterprise user and always was.
The nice things though are the widgets, productivity tab and the feel of the keyboard, his is subjective but I love the keyboard.. Better than the Passport? I wouldn't go that far... but it's amazing to type with and I do not use the onscreen keyboard at all.
Performance in general is okay. Could be better.
To summarise I really want to love my priv, but I can't, not from me being extremely honest about this. Even a die hard fanboy like me is disappointed, and when I say fan boy I mean iv owned a 9300 , 9360 , torch , z30 and passport. This is a downgrade from the Passport definitely.
People need to realise what they buying.. This is an android phone.. An ANDROID.
If you going to go android rather go Samsung or a manufacturer who has nailed the OS down because blackberry is well short on a lot of things.