[RoverSpitfire]

Today the Q10 came out in Canada and I picked one up!

Previously, I'd purchased a Z10 on launch day in Canada, and I had a bit of a wrestling match with it. See this thread here:

http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...4s-z10-768163/

Ultimately, I went back to Apple from the Z10, buying an unlocked iPhone 5. There were just too many sacrifices for me, being an Apple fan and having a complete Apple ecosystem in the house. And the Z10 experience was glitchy, particularly with iCloud. But fear not BB fans, read on...

Now, having experienced the Z10 I was pretty familiar with BB10 when I went to setup my wife's Q10. She's been holding out for the Q10 because she really wanted the physical keyboard. She loathes the virtual keyboard of iOS along with the infamous autocorrect.

Things we know we will miss but are willing to forego:
* She loved that all of our media purchases automatically downloaded to her phone, wherever she was, if I made one from another device.
* I use an iPad all day long at work at the office, and I'm on my Mac when I'm at home. iMessage hits all these platforms simultaneously. Having the Q10 outside the ecosystem leaves messaging less clean. For now, What's App solves the phone to phone messaging, but it doesn't support tablets or computers.

Setup experience:
* Previously I had major problems with iCloud - not this time, this time everything worked smooth and perfect.
* Added a Yahoo! account, iCloud for mail, calendars and contacts, Facebook and Evernote.
* Setup a new BB ID.
* Downloaded and setup What's App.
* Everything was smooth and easy here!!!

Gripes:
* Switching between fields in forms is still a crap shoot. It's easiest to start in the first field and hit enter to advance to the next field. I should be able to tap into a field, and position the cursor in that field. Doesn't work that way. I find that frustrating.

Notable improvements from the Z10:
* Love, love, love the dark theme. Wish they had that on the Z10.
* Positioning the cursor in a large text field is much improved.
* Selecting text in a large text field is much improved.

That's about it so far. I still need to customize notifications, change the volume rocker to ringer not media volume, and a few other customizations for her.

I like BB10, I really do, and with the improvements in 10.1, I could see myself dusting off the Z10 and giving it another go. I'm especially curious to see what the new BBM experience is like in person with voice/video/screen share.

Store experience:
* I went to the largest Rogers outlet in London, Ontario to pick up the Q10, which we had reserved.
* It was after work, and busy, I was third in line when I arrived and at least one person ahead of me was buying a Q10.
* The woman ahead of me buying the Q10 said she'd been specifically waiting for the physical keyboard model.
* The fellow at the store said he'd sold 3 himself since starting mid-afternoon.
* He said that they hadn't sold out, but that being the largest store in the city by volume, they got a very large shipment.
* His opinion was that it was a very strong launch for a device, and that it was going to be a 'monster'.
* The two other wireless stores (both withing 100 feet of the Rogers store) also had waiting lists going into today.

My two cents: I like the Q10 better than the Z10. The Z10 was just too much like the iPhone, but not as good as the iPhone, so the inevitable comparisons left it wanting (to me). On the other hand, the Q10 is so much better than my corporate Bold. With the dark theme, the amazing comfortable keyboard, and a lot of the kinks worked out of the OS I think the Q10 is a real winner.

Corporately this device can't be touched. I know that two enormous corporations in Canada will be ready to start replacing their fleets with BB10 as early as June. (I can't say which because I work at one, and my brother-in-law at the other.) I can also say that a third corporation (my sister-in-law works at) flirted with Good for iPhones and found it wanting. My company did the same to the same result. So that's three of the largest corporations in Canada that will be rolling out BB10 in the latter half of 2013. And with the Q10 I think people will be very happy!

[eldricho]

Sad to see you leave, but very constructive critisim and I hope you will one day be back again on the dark side

[ibpluto]

Welcome back

Posted via CB10 from my awesome Z10

[drjames05]

Just a quick aside.. you're talking about the Masonville Store ya? Lol.. i got the same speach about it being the busiest Rogers in London when I picked up my Z10... had a great customer experience there.

Posted via CB10