[spike12]

How does the centre of balance feel on the phone typing one handed and also browsing one handed?

[BBThemes]

Being not a fan of touch screens, I wonder this too. Will the BB10 experience be so good as to make me give up my wonderful Bold keyboard? I expect to forgo the N series as it will not have a trackpad. Was the pop up keyboard that much better than others I've used?

surely if the trackpad is the dealbreaker, the keyboard question is irrelevant? editing text, moving around etc in the full touch is nice btw, although iv only a dev alpha so my experience is limited to whats been seen by all already

[FuzzyFish]

No benchmarks or anything.

The device itself is thin, about 3/4 the thickness of the 9900 but felt thinner than that when you look at and hold it. The top and bottom of the phone tapers down ever so slightly at the edge.

[FuzzyFish]

Being not a fan of touch screens, I wonder this too. Will the BB10 experience be so good as to make me give up my wonderful Bold keyboard? I expect to forgo the N series as it will not have a trackpad. Was the pop up keyboard that much better than others I've used?

I really wanted to like the L series and really thought about going this route, but I don't think I can anymore. I can type just fine on a touchscreen, but I spend so much time typing on my devices that the "feel" of the keyboard is paramount to me.

The L series' keyboard is the best digital keyboard out there no question, it's accurate, learns what you type (I think it scans the words that are in your emails actually), had great spacing and the predictive text works really well.
Just like CB Kevin said though, you have to slow down your typing if you use the predictive text feature. If you type with 2 thumbs at a decent pace, by the time you see the words pop up on the frets your mind and thumb are already 1 or 2 characters ahead. I don't doubt that the predictive text feature can save some people time (especially one handed typers), but if you're used to typing really fast with 2 thumbs there will be quite a large learning curve if you really want to use the swipy predictive text.
This was make or break for me, turns out it's not something I'm willing to adapt to.

to be fair id probably of run with `my impressions` rather than `ask me about...` as then you say what you`re allowed to, and dont have to answer questions which cant be answered.

so, on that basis:
do you like the full touch? would you ditch the qwerty? (i presume you tried only the touch)
how thick was the device? say in comparison to others. also weight, is it nokia920 heavy or feather light?
how do the thicker (visually but not really when ya look at phones) bezels work for you? do they bother you?
how was the `balance` of the phone? was it top heavy or did it sit just right?

You're right, I tried to edit the title but couldn't do it. My apologies.

Re: full touch vs. QWERTY, see my reply right above. I only tried the full touch, not many people have the QWERTY yet.

The L series was thin, somewhere between the iPhone 5 and 9900. Probably closer to the iPhone 5 than 9900. In terms of weight it was far lighter than I expected, holding it and my 9900 back to back felt like it was half the weight (it's not, but it felt like it was). Far lighter than the GSIII and not unlike the iPhone 5.

I really thought the thick bezels would bother me, but they didn't one bit. The bezels look thicker in pictures than when you actually use it and everything on screen is moving around. It was just fine and I doubt it'll be an issue for most people once they use the device.

The balance of the phone was perfect, nothing to worry about there.

How does the centre of balance feel on the phone typing one handed and also browsing one handed?

Balance was fantastic, this will be a wonderful one handed device. I'd argue it works better one handed than with 2 if you're a mainstream user. A 2 thumbs power user might want a slightly wider device, especially for typing.
The L series is just a tick narrower than the 9900.

surely if the trackpad is the dealbreaker, the keyboard question is irrelevant? editing text, moving around etc in the full touch is nice btw, although iv only a dev alpha so my experience is limited to whats been seen by all already

You know what, I love the trackpad but I really didn't miss it. The digital cursor worked really well and was extremely accurate on the build that I was using. I think most users won't miss the trackpad after using BB10 for a few days.

[Revampd]

surely if the trackpad is the dealbreaker, the keyboard question is irrelevant? editing text, moving around etc in the full touch is nice btw, although iv only a dev alpha so my experience is limited to whats been seen by all already

I guess what I'm trying to say is that without a trackpad I might as well come into the 21st century and get a full touchscreen device, even though I've never used one that didn't make me crazy. I'm hoping that the BB10 on screen keyboard will be so super-whammy that it will be worth giving up my Bold. That really is my question.

To be honest, if RIM made my Bold in BB10 i would just keep it forever. Yes, I understand that BB10 is a full touch experience but as I said, I have never been a fan. I really want BB10 to convert me.

[zeeten]

Is the material on the top, bottom and along the sides metal or plastic? If plastic, does it feel premium or cheap?

Sent from my BlackBerry 9860 using Tapatalk

[Revampd]

...You know what, I love the trackpad but I really didn't miss it. The digital cursor worked really well and was extremely accurate on the build that I was using. I think most users won't miss the trackpad after using BB10 for a few days...

Thank you. That's what I wanted to hear. Of all the changes, losing the trackpad is the one I most fear.

[FuzzyFish]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that without a trackpad I might as well come into the 21st century and get a full touchscreen device, even though I've never used one that didn't make me crazy. I'm hoping that the BB10 on screen keyboard will be so super-whammy that it will be worth giving up my Bold. That really is my question.

To be honest, if RIM made my Bold in BB10 i would just keep it forever. Yes, I understand that BB10 is a full touch experience but as I said, I have never been a fan. I really want BB10 to convert me.

I think it comes down to how fast you type on your Bold and whether you care about the predictive text feature. If you're even remotely fast on the Bold then definitely try the L series before committing. The touch keyboard is the best around, but it's not so different that if you hated the other touch keyboards you'll all of a sudden love the BB10 one.

Why not try the N series before deciding?

[FuzzyFish]

Is the material on the top, bottom and along the sides metal or plastic? If plastic, does it feel premium or cheap?

Sent from my BlackBerry 9860 using Tapatalk

No metal on the L Series at all. Top, bottom and sides are all polycarbonate as far as I can tell, the dimpled back is softtouch rubber. It's not the same as the Playbook's back in terms of feel, the PB feels nicer but the L series back feels softer.

The device felt nice, although not as nice as the 9900 or iPhone 4/4S/5. There's no question that it's extremely sturdy and well built, but it lacked the top end premium feel to me; probably because of the all polycarbonate construction and light weight.
If the 9900 (black one, not the white version) and iPhone 4/4A/5 are a 10 in terms of physical feeling, the L Series is an 8.5 to me.

[Revampd]

I think it comes down to how fast you type on your Bold and whether you care about the predictive text feature. If you're even remotely fast on the Bold then definitely try the L series before committing. The touch keyboard is the best around, but it's not so different that if you hated the other touch keyboards you'll all of a sudden love the BB10 one.

Why not try the N series before deciding?

Well, I'm a touch typist though how much it helps when thumb typing is debatable. I've never used predictive text. I find it distracting. I'm always checking to see if it has figured out what I already know I want to say .

I'm intrigued by the concept that the new keyboard is supposed to be able to learn how you touch the keyboard over time. As I keep some (small) length to my fingernails and seem always to be coming at the keys at various angles, this could be just the thing that wins me over.

Thank you for your input.

[BB_Bmore]

Were the apps you saw that you can't talk about as not to steal the thunder 3rd party or core apps? Thanks in advance.

[RubberChicken76]

On the UI and eye candy, did you see any cool use of animation? This is one area where I've always felt RIM didn't pay enough attention. I was recently playing with a friend's Galaxy and it had this cool page turning effect as you navigated the home screen. Likewise, iOS has lots of cool little touches like photos expanding and dropping into an email when you share a photo or emails shrinking, falling into the trash can and then the lid bounces.

I thought RIM didn't get enough credit for improving BBOS in terms of iconography (compare 4.2.2 to 7) but felt that their devices lacked these fun little touches. PlayBook is the same ... certainly more than powerful enough to deliver such an experience ... it just didn't.

How did the frames look? Based on what I've seen, that's the one thing I don't like the physical look of.

[lnichols]

Dumb question, and you probably didn't get a chance to try this - but maybe someone can answer...

will BB10 devices need that stupid BB Device Manager installed to access the built-in storage (like the Playbook does)? I find that to be such a pain.

I can push files to my Playbook without the device manager over WiFi!

[zeeten]

No metal on the L Series at all. Top, bottom and sides are all polycarbonate as far as I can tell, the dimpled back is softtouch rubber. It's not the same as the Playbook's back in terms of feel, the PB feels nicer but the L series back feels softer.

The device felt nice, although not as nice as the 9900 or iPhone 4/4S/5. There's no question that it's extremely sturdy and well built, but it lacked the top end premium feel to me; probably because of the all polycarbonate construction and light weight.
If the 9900 (black one, not the white version) and iPhone 4/4A/5 are a 10 in terms of physical feeling, the L Series is an 8.5 to me.

Thank you. I guess thats not bad. I was hoping for something with more of a premium look and feel.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9860 using Tapatalk

[FuzzyFish]

Were the apps you saw that you can't talk about as not to steal the thunder 3rd party or core apps? Thanks in advance.

Sorry, it's not something I should talk about. It's not a matter of can or can't (as mentioned, I nor my employer have any sort of NDA with RIM), but as a supporter of the company I do want RIM to do well and if they haven't talked about the apps themselves, I don't want to either.

[Innovatology]

Did it blend? ;-)

[FuzzyFish]

On the UI and eye candy, did you see any cool use of animation? This is one area where I've always felt RIM didn't pay enough attention. I was recently playing with a friend's Galaxy and it had this cool page turning effect as you navigated the home screen. Likewise, iOS has lots of cool little touches like photos expanding and dropping into an email when you share a photo or emails shrinking, falling into the trash can and then the lid bounces.

I thought RIM didn't get enough credit for improving BBOS in terms of iconography (compare 4.2.2 to 7) but felt that their devices lacked these fun little touches. PlayBook is the same ... certainly more than powerful enough to deliver such an experience ... it just didn't.

How did the frames look? Based on what I've seen, that's the one thing I don't like the physical look of.

This is what I meant when I said I felt there wasn't enough flash. I hate animations that reduce efficiency but I'm all for little touches that adds a bit of "wow" to the UI without slowing anything down. IMHO BB10 is really lacking here, and it worries me that some of the general public will think BB10 is old and outdated because it doesn't have these touches. We all know about the lock screen, but the only other animation I came across is the transitional effects when you scroll from page to page on the app launcher. It's the same effect as the PB's Pictures app, it looks good but the entire UI needs more effects, I really do believe that.

So no, BB10 still needs a lot of work here, if you're into these types of things (I am and think it's important to have in order to penetrate the consumer market). It's almost like BB10 needs to go through TAT's finishing school still.

Active Frames, it works really well. I never had much problems with how Active Frames look to begin with, so I never thought it looked bad when I used it, but nothing much had changed since we first saw the feature. One suggestion, it would be nice to see a swipe up gesture to close to Active Frames, right now it just has a little small "X" on the lower right corner.
The device I used was somewhat fresh, so I didn't really see much info in the AF when I opened several apps to try it out.

Thank you. I guess thats not bad. I was hoping for something with more of a premium look and feel.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9860 using Tapatalk

Don't get me wrong, the L series look GREAT!! It's right up there with any smartphone in terms of appearance. You don't get a good feel for the size from pictures and videos, it's really good here. The polycarbonate feels good to the touch too, it's just to some people (me included) a little bit of heft equals quality, and the light weight and lack of metal hurts the premium-ness a little.

[BB_Bmore]

Hardware was finalized, OS was not. I did see a couple of apps that haven't been talked about much (or at all) previously, but I will not say what they are.

I'm not looking to "steal the thunder" or hurt the company in any ways, shape or form. Personally I had a lot of questions about how the device felt physically, whether I can ditch the QWERTY and go for the full touch, how thick the device actually was, if it had separate contacts for a dock (like the 9900), and if I would have been bothered by the thicker bezel top and bottom compared to some of the newer devices out this year.
These are the things that I can talk about, not what else RIM will release on Jan 30.

Hope that clears it up.

Saying if they are core or 3rd party would still leave a huge ammount of speculation but I respect your answer. Thanks.

[calicocat2010]

Ok I got several..and These questions are from Another thread. Let's see if you can answer Most of these.

Definitely not the most constructive tone, but does bring ip some interesting points.

The BlackBerry 10 homescreen is terrible � Ebscer News - Google Search


"BlackBerry 10 homescreen is terrible
The executives from RIM have talked about how they want to minimize the use of the homescreen, and try and get away the in-and-out pattern of launching apps. To this end the process of invoking another app�s card is brilliantly implemented, and when it makes sense will provide users with a seamless experience. But at times users are going to want to use the homescreen, and when they do they are going to be very disappointed.

The homescreen experience on BlackBerry 10 is absolutely terrible. There is practically no way to organize your installed apps. Even though I am only using my DevAlpha for developing and testing apps, I already have more apps than I can manage on the device. If this was the situation on my day to day phone, it would be the kind of annoyance that would lead to me downloading less apps, because I would not want to deal with managing them all. (And as an app developer, I clearly want people to download more and more applications).

What is worse, is that most of the limitations seem to be rather artificial. You can not have nested folders, you can�t have more than 16 apps on each page, you can not have more than 16 apps in a folder. So say you have four pages of apps, and just downloaded a new game, and wanted to place it in a folder on your first page of apps. (I think this is a rather reasonable scenario). You would navigate to the fourth page and grab the app, then move it to the third page. This would bump an app off of the third page and on to the fourth page. You would then drag your new game from the third page to the second page (bumping one of the second page apps to the third page), then you would drag your game to the first page (bumping the final first page app to the second page). You could then finally place the new game into the folder. If you then wanted to get back your icon that was bumped off of your first screen you would drag it over from the second screen, see that it was in the upper left corner (instead of the lower right corner where you had it a minute ago), dragging it to the lower right won�t work, so you would have to move it the second last icon, and then move the last icon over one place. (Repeat per page if you want to restore your previous pages to their starting look).

Nested Folders
I will admit that personally I am not too likely to want to place one folder inside another, but I see no reason why that shouldn�t be an option. Not everyone wants their apps in such a flat organizational layout. Some people would prefer to save their apps in a more strict hierarchy.

App limit per folder
Having a limit of 16 apps per folder makes them almost useless for organizational purposes. Of the four folders on my BlackBerry Bold, three of them have over 30 applications. (And despite its smaller screen, my Bold can display more than 16 icons at a time).

Folder navigation
I have to wonder if the gesture for exiting folders has had any usability testing at all. For power users, it is kindof neat, but if I were to hand a BlackBerry 10 phone to a complete stranger, I would guess that they would be unable to exit the folder. For those who don�t know how to exit folders on BB10, just know that swiping left, right, up, or down will not work, neither will tapping anywhere on the screen. If RIM doesn�t want to go with the corner x, that the PlayBook uses, I would suggest that the huge label on the bottom of the folder that looks like a button, should do something.

Orientation
Why does the homescreen not work in landscape orientation? Is there any reason for this at all? For all of its faults even OS 4.7.0.65 had no problem displaying the homescreen in landscape orientation. Remember how most of the pre-installed PlayBook apps only supported a single orientation, and we had to wait a year and a half for version 2.1 in order to mostly get that fixed? Lets not repeat that mistake.

Bezel swipe to unlock
The bezel swipe to unlock on the PlayBook is awesome. On the Dev Alpha, not so much. Unlike the ease of the PlayBook, BlackBerry 10 requires you to swipe twice, and furthermore the second swipe has to be in a predefined direction. It is the very nemesis of productivity, and I would much rather have access to my phone after a single swipe. Also the button on the top of the phone that look like the unlock button on the older BlackBerrys, instead does nothing useful.

Why limit the number of apps on each page
The 16 app per page limit is very annoying and was the root cause of most of the issues in my example in the beginning of this rant. The PlayBook already has a great system for handling this, just scroll down a bit on the page to see the rest that is there. I would be pretty happy to see that interface copied verbatim. The current implementation is very broken.

For my friends at RIM, the good news is that you still have 43 days to fix this. I don�t want to see BlackBerry 10 ship with an interface that is so frustratingly unusable.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2012 at 9:50 am and is filed under Blackberry, BlackBerry10. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site./...."

[FuzzyFish]

Ok I got several..and These questions are from Another thread. Let's see if you can answer Most of these.

Definitely not the most constructive tone, but does bring ip some interesting points.

The BlackBerry 10 homescreen is terrible � Ebscer News - Google Search


"BlackBerry 10 homescreen is terrible
The executives from RIM have talked about how they want to minimize the use of the homescreen, and try and get away the in-and-out pattern of launching apps. To this end the process of invoking another app’s card is brilliantly implemented, and when it makes sense will provide users with a seamless experience. But at times users are going to want to use the homescreen, and when they do they are going to be very disappointed.

The homescreen experience on BlackBerry 10 is absolutely terrible. There is practically no way to organize your installed apps. Even though I am only using my DevAlpha for developing and testing apps, I already have more apps than I can manage on the device. If this was the situation on my day to day phone, it would be the kind of annoyance that would lead to me downloading less apps, because I would not want to deal with managing them all. (And as an app developer, I clearly want people to download more and more applications).

What is worse, is that most of the limitations seem to be rather artificial. You can not have nested folders, you can’t have more than 16 apps on each page, you can not have more than 16 apps in a folder. So say you have four pages of apps, and just downloaded a new game, and wanted to place it in a folder on your first page of apps. (I think this is a rather reasonable scenario). You would navigate to the fourth page and grab the app, then move it to the third page. This would bump an app off of the third page and on to the fourth page. You would then drag your new game from the third page to the second page (bumping one of the second page apps to the third page), then you would drag your game to the first page (bumping the final first page app to the second page). You could then finally place the new game into the folder. If you then wanted to get back your icon that was bumped off of your first screen you would drag it over from the second screen, see that it was in the upper left corner (instead of the lower right corner where you had it a minute ago), dragging it to the lower right won’t work, so you would have to move it the second last icon, and then move the last icon over one place. (Repeat per page if you want to restore your previous pages to their starting look).

Nested Folders
I will admit that personally I am not too likely to want to place one folder inside another, but I see no reason why that shouldn’t be an option. Not everyone wants their apps in such a flat organizational layout. Some people would prefer to save their apps in a more strict hierarchy.

App limit per folder
Having a limit of 16 apps per folder makes them almost useless for organizational purposes. Of the four folders on my BlackBerry Bold, three of them have over 30 applications. (And despite its smaller screen, my Bold can display more than 16 icons at a time).

Folder navigation
I have to wonder if the gesture for exiting folders has had any usability testing at all. For power users, it is kindof neat, but if I were to hand a BlackBerry 10 phone to a complete stranger, I would guess that they would be unable to exit the folder. For those who don’t know how to exit folders on BB10, just know that swiping left, right, up, or down will not work, neither will tapping anywhere on the screen. If RIM doesn’t want to go with the corner x, that the PlayBook uses, I would suggest that the huge label on the bottom of the folder that looks like a button, should do something.

Orientation
Why does the homescreen not work in landscape orientation? Is there any reason for this at all? For all of its faults even OS 4.7.0.65 had no problem displaying the homescreen in landscape orientation. Remember how most of the pre-installed PlayBook apps only supported a single orientation, and we had to wait a year and a half for version 2.1 in order to mostly get that fixed? Lets not repeat that mistake.

Bezel swipe to unlock
The bezel swipe to unlock on the PlayBook is awesome. On the Dev Alpha, not so much. Unlike the ease of the PlayBook, BlackBerry 10 requires you to swipe twice, and furthermore the second swipe has to be in a predefined direction. It is the very nemesis of productivity, and I would much rather have access to my phone after a single swipe. Also the button on the top of the phone that look like the unlock button on the older BlackBerrys, instead does nothing useful.

Why limit the number of apps on each page
The 16 app per page limit is very annoying and was the root cause of most of the issues in my example in the beginning of this rant. The PlayBook already has a great system for handling this, just scroll down a bit on the page to see the rest that is there. I would be pretty happy to see that interface copied verbatim. The current implementation is very broken.

For my friends at RIM, the good news is that you still have 43 days to fix this. I don’t want to see BlackBerry 10 ship with an interface that is so frustratingly unusable.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2012 at 9:50 am and is filed under Blackberry, BlackBerry10. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site./...."

Many of these are personal opinions and doesn't apply to everybody, things like nested folders, orientation (tablets are one thing, but what phone actually have a landscape homescreen?), 16 apps per page and folder doesn't mean a whole lot to me. However I did notice the Bezel Swipe to Unlock issue, I do like you can swipe to turn on the screen instead of having to use a button, but having to swipe twice to unlock the phone was odd and felt tedious; you can swipe bezel to bezel from bottom to top to unlock with one swipe, but that only works with people who uses their index finger to interact with the phone. It doesn't work if you use your thumb(s) as many of us do.
Some polishing can and should be done here.

I wouldn't say the homescreen is terrible, far from it in fact; but I do feel that it's quite blend.

P.S. One thing that is fixed over the PBOS, you can now hold the volume buttons to have volume go up and down more than just one level.

[aha]

I hope the paint won't chip away over time like my 9810 or 9800

[mathking606]

Thanks for anwsering these all of these questions. I really hope that RIM's UI team is reading all of these comments and suggestions and making some some serious considerations since they still have 40 days and I hope that they let TAT have a final run through of the OS and add in all of there of little touches. As well if someone wants to they can tweet this link to @BlackBerryScoop since he knows the RIM UI team and even said he sent the concerns from Ebscer's article to them.

[Masahiro]

Thanks for answering the questions. All your constructive criticisms in regards to the lightness of the device and the look of the UI don't really concern me, so I'm very excited.

Did you get to try the media player? Did they keep the volume key functions where you could hold down the increase or decrease volume keys to change tracks? I'm assuming they did.

[Tatperson]

Thanks for anwsering these all of these questions. I really hope that RIM's UI team is reading all of these comments and suggestions and making some some serious considerations since they still have 40 days and I hope that they let TAT have a final run through of the OS and add in all of there of little touches. As well if someone wants to they can tweet this link to @BlackBerryScoop since he knows the RIM UI team and even said he sent the concerns from Ebscer's article to them.

Yeah I think I wanna ask him about the eye-candy in BB10. That's what makes WP8 appeal to the general public, and if BB10 doesn't have all these cool effects many people will criticize BB10 for being boring and no wow factor.

Sent from the world's (once) most powerful smartphone.

[digitalman101]

Yeah I think I wanna ask him about the eye-candy in BB10. That's what makes WP8 appeal to the general public, and if BB10 doesn't have all these cool effects many people will criticize BB10 for being boring and no wow factor.

Sent from the world's (once) most powerful smartphone.

RIM has defined their public as people on the go and people that do things. With such profile in mind, the 'nice animations' are not priority or even important. To be honest, I played around with wp 7.x some time ago, it was great on the beginning all the cool stuff, but after a while, I could not care less or even I considered as distracting. Once wp8 follows the concept, pretty sure I will resist temptation ;-)

Personally, I hope that BB10 brings functionality and elegance. I want (minimalism) elegance on the UI and UX.