1. pp4e's Avatar
    Not having ever used a Blackberry before, I'll go into a few details of what you can expect to see on the Passport keyboard. Feel free to ask me any questions as well.

    Most of you, if not all of you, already know about the capacitive keyboard. I'm not sure what new about this are out there, but here are some features on it you can expect.

    - Swipe back to delete words
    - Swipe up for predictive words
    - Double tap to bring up the cursor, from which where you can press the on screen shift key and navigate to highlight using the keyboard trackpad (which is extremely fast and responsive)
    or just use the keyboard to navigate the cursor (which is a round magnifying glass with a straight bar cursor)
    - Swipe down for numbers and alternate keys (on screen), swipe down again and it'll change to another set of keys. This takes a bit of getting used to coming from a non-blackberry user, but not difficult to get used to at all. And yes, these virtual alternate characters are mapped to the physical keys. One thing I noticed is that there is no physical map for commas, but it's on the bottom row of the virtual keyboard anyway so it's not difficult to find. Would've liked a shortkey though. Personal preference!
    - Typing is easy. Good weight in the hands, very good weight. Never having used a keyboard before, this was obviously new to me. I obviously type faster on my touch screen phones, but I think with a little time, I'd be able to type just as fast (if not faster) on the passport keyboard

    - One thing I wish for with the keyboard coming from the fact that I've never been a keyboard user is for an option to have the capacitive feature of the keyboard give an option to type without having to press down fully on the keys. What I mean is that it'd be nice to have option to use the keyboard as touch instead of press. This would also make it a lot easier for touch users like myself to make the transition well (although pressing isn't very difficult at all, just an idea for an added feature that would ease transition). This would be pretty cool.

    - Other things to note. Screen is absolutely stunningly beautiful. Speakers are loud. Battery is monstrous. Blackberry assistant picks up on what you say just as well as Google Now, but is about 0.5s slower in search tests between other voice assistants.

    Can't think of anything else.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    07-25-14 09:14 AM
  2. sonicpix's Avatar
    I wish I could get my hands on it. I know someone at BlackBerry who's got it. He refuses to show me it. All he says is it's big, he loves it and it's the best keyboard he's used.

    BB Proud
    Bonnie Bonzai likes this.
    07-25-14 09:23 AM
  3. ladeberry's Avatar
    ok so when the virtual keyboard is on-screen i can tap the actual physical keys mapped to them ?
    can i hit the shift key and tap the physical keys immediately to produce the corresponding virtual key without the virtual screen popping up ?


    Not having ever used a Blackberry before, I'll go into a few details of what you can expect to see on the Passport keyboard. Feel free to ask me any questions as well.

    Most of you, if not all of you, already know about the capacitive keyboard. I'm not sure what new about this are out there, but here are some features on it you can expect.

    - Swipe back to delete words
    - Swipe up for predictive words
    - Double tap to bring up the cursor, from which where you can press the on screen shift key and navigate to highlight using the keyboard trackpad (which is extremely fast and responsive)
    or just use the keyboard to navigate the cursor (which is a round magnifying glass with a straight bar cursor)
    - Swipe down for numbers and alternate keys (on screen), swipe down again and it'll change to another set of keys. This takes a bit of getting used to coming from a non-blackberry user, but not difficult to get used to at all. And yes, these virtual alternate characters are mapped to the physical keys. One thing I noticed is that there is no physical map for commas, but it's on the bottom row of the virtual keyboard anyway so it's not difficult to find. Would've liked a shortkey though. Personal preference!
    - Typing is easy. Good weight in the hands, very good weight. Never having used a keyboard before, this was obviously new to me. I obviously type faster on my touch screen phones, but I think with a little time, I'd be able to type just as fast (if not faster) on the passport keyboard

    - One thing I wish for with the keyboard coming from the fact that I've never been a keyboard user is for an option to have the capacitive feature of the keyboard give an option to type without having to press down fully on the keys. What I mean is that it'd be nice to have option to use the keyboard as touch instead of press. This would also make it a lot easier for touch users like myself to make the transition well (although pressing isn't very difficult at all, just an idea for an added feature that would ease transition). This would be pretty cool.

    - Other things to note. Screen is absolutely stunningly beautiful. Speakers are loud. Battery is monstrous. Blackberry assistant picks up on what you say just as well as Google Now, but is about 0.5s slower in search tests between other voice assistants.

    Can't think of anything else.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    07-25-14 09:29 AM
  4. WWBlondieDo's Avatar
    And yes, these virtual alternate characters are mapped to the physical keys. One thing I noticed is that there is no physical map for commas, but it's on the bottom row of the virtual keyboard anyway so it's not difficult to find.
    A LOT of people, myself included, are going to be happy with that question finally being answered!

    Posted via CB10
    07-25-14 09:43 AM
  5. pp4e's Avatar
    ok so when the virtual keyboard is on-screen i can tap the actual physical keys mapped to them ?
    can i hit the shift key and tap the physical keys immediately to produce the corresponding virtual key without the virtual screen popping up ?
    You can press the physical keys mapped to them (not tap) to enter them into the message field when the virtual keys are available. Pressing shift (or swiping down, which I believe is much faster and intuitive) will automatically bring up the virtual keyboard and it'll automatically disappear once you enter your desired key. It's actually not distracting at all if that was something you were wondering about.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    07-25-14 09:46 AM
  6. Burton79's Avatar
    The shift key is virtual only and there is no physical shift key if Im not mistaken? If so the swipe would take some getting use to after a long time with a bold, but I also think that in time it would be faster.
    07-25-14 10:05 AM
  7. chrispmoto's Avatar
    When you swipe down to get the "numbers" up, once you tap a number, do the rest of the numbers disappear from the "virtual screen" like they do on my Z30?

    Z30 user and lover.
    07-25-14 10:43 AM
  8. chrispmoto's Avatar
    Sorry, I see you already mentioned it.
    Thanks for the info!!

    Z30 user and lover.
    07-25-14 10:46 AM
  9. BrizzadMan's Avatar
    One thing I wish for with the keyboard coming from the fact that I've never been a keyboard user is for an option to have the capacitive feature of the keyboard give an option to type without having to press down fully on the keys. What I mean is that it'd be nice to have option to use the keyboard as touch instead of press. This would also make it a lot easier for touch users like myself to make the transition well (although pressing isn't very difficult at all, just an idea for an added feature that would ease transition). This would be pretty cool.
    This is something I've thought about as well. Tapping on a glass screen affords a fast typing experience. Physically pressing keys does slow things down somewhat from my experience.

    However - how do you think this could be implemented? The "double-tap" to bring up cursor control/trackpad functionality of the keyboard would need to be changed... since tap-typing would interrupt this.
    07-25-14 10:46 AM
  10. ivantoothache's Avatar
    Sir would like to ask about the autofocus of the camera if does it now match the iphone5s autofocus speed? That's all sir pls pls...

    Posted via CB10
    07-25-14 12:25 PM
  11. Brian Scasta's Avatar
    Do you get an actual cursor that you can hover over links that have drop down menus?

    Posted via CB10
    07-25-14 12:30 PM
  12. ZeroBarrier's Avatar
    You can press the physical keys mapped to them (not tap) to enter them into the message field when the virtual keys are available. Pressing shift (or swiping down, which I believe is much faster and intuitive) will automatically bring up the virtual keyboard and it'll automatically disappear once you enter your desired key. It's actually not distracting at all if that was something you were wondering about.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    Well, that does it. This device is dead in the water for me. I type out tons of long strings of numbers daily; and having to swipe down for every individual number when trying to type 10+ digits is absolutely ridiculous.

    I'm sorry, but whoever thinks this device is the second coming of BlackBerry is out of their damn minds.

    Is having a freaking dedicated shift and alt key so much to ask for? Especially on such a freaking wide device??? Way to go BlackBerry, you've blown it again.

    Posted via CB10
    07-25-14 01:04 PM
  13. pp4e's Avatar
    Well, that does it. This device is dead in the water for me. I type out tons of long strings of numbers daily; and having to swipe down for every individual number when trying to type 10+ digits is absolutely ridiculous.

    I'm sorry, but whoever thinks this device is the second coming of BlackBerry is out of their damn minds.

    Is having a freaking dedicated shift and alt key so much to ask for? Especially on such a freaking wide device??? Way to go BlackBerry, you've blown it again.

    Posted via CB10
    If you want to type a string of numbers, you can use the virtual keyboard. As for using physical key mapping, I'll check to see of you can keep the virtual keyboard open for such scenarios.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    07-25-14 01:20 PM
  14. pp4e's Avatar
    Sir would like to ask about the autofocus of the camera if does it now match the iphone5s autofocus speed? That's all sir pls pls...

    Posted via CB10
    No iPhone 5s to test against. Autofocus speed doesn't seem slow to me though, and I'm a photographer on the side so slow focus would usually bother me.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    Thunderbuck and ptpete like this.
    07-25-14 01:22 PM
  15. Technomotive's Avatar
    Well, that does it. This device is dead in the water for me. I type out tons of long strings of numbers daily; and having to swipe down for every individual number when trying to type 10+ digits is absolutely ridiculous.

    I'm sorry, but whoever thinks this device is the second coming of BlackBerry is out of their damn minds.

    Is having a freaking dedicated shift and alt key so much to ask for? Especially on such a freaking wide device??? Way to go BlackBerry, you've blown it again.

    Posted via CB10
    If like the other BB10 all-touch phones, there should be a symbol button that keeps the numbers/symbols up until you change it.



    Posted via CB10
    07-25-14 01:26 PM
  16. pp4e's Avatar
    If like the other BB10 all-touch phones, there should be a symbol button that keeps the numbers/symbols up until you change it.



    Posted via CB10
    Yup, this is how it works. But the numbers will be on screen, which I just tested, and it does not feel uncomfortable to use at all. This shouldn't be a problem for anyone that wants to type numbers. I just typed 3.141593654 faster than you can say it. A non issue (personal opinion).

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    07-25-14 01:35 PM
  17. ZeroBarrier's Avatar
    If you want to type a string of numbers, you can use the virtual keyboard. As for using physical key mapping, I'll check to see of you can keep the virtual keyboard open for such scenarios.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    The point of having a hardware QWERTY keyboard is to type on it, not the screen. If I wanted to tap a virtual on-screen keyboard I'd just get a Z30 instead of a QWERTY keyboard device.

    If like the other BB10 all-touch phones, there should be a symbol button that keeps the numbers/symbols up until you change it.



    Posted via CB10
    The Passport is not an all-touch phone, that should be painfully obvious. BlackBerry's choice to strip the QWERTY keyboard of ****, alt and sym keys is just mind boggling stupid on a whole new level.



    Posted via CB10
    07-25-14 01:38 PM
  18. pp4e's Avatar
    Do you get an actual cursor that you can hover over links that have drop down menus?

    Posted via CB10
    There doesn't appear to be a cursor anywhere during browsing. In text, it's a magnifying glass with the vertical line acting as the cursor. I'm web browsing, there is no cursor.

    However, a neat thing I just found is that you can scroll web pages using the capacitive keyboard as well, so nothing ever gets blocked out of view which is really nice. I prefer this browsing over browsing on the s5 actually. I don't know why, I really think the capacitive keyboard scrolling has a lot to do with it though! And the crisp screen of course.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    rolextwelve likes this.
    07-25-14 01:45 PM
  19. laketrout73's Avatar
    The Passport is not an all-touch phone, that should be painfully obvious.
    You need to think of the Passport as a hybrid device and maybe it won't cause you such pain.
    07-25-14 01:50 PM
  20. m1kr0's Avatar
    I'm getting motion sickness moving between the two threads discussing the same thing, so I've requested the mods to merge so we don't ask duplicate questions to OP.
    http://forums.crackberry.com/showthread.php?t=948417

    Z10 STL100-1, OS 10.2.1.3247
    pp4e likes this.
    07-25-14 01:54 PM
  21. chrispmoto's Avatar
    This phone sounds really exciting.
    Hybrid, love it!
    How does the picture quality look with the camera??

    Z30 user and lover.
    07-25-14 02:04 PM
  22. pp4e's Avatar
    The point of having a hardware QWERTY keyboard is to type on it, not the screen. If I wanted to tap a virtual on-screen keyboard I'd just get a Z30 instead of a QWERTY keyboard device.

    Posted via CB10
    All things considered, I type pretty well on the new keyboard and have absolutely no problems. Until asked the question, I had no need to type a string of numbers so it never even occurred to me. But knowing that I will eventually encounter a situation where I'll have to type a phone number or something, the virtual keyboard was not out of the way to use at all. It was not frustrating in the least to have to move my thumbs up two centimeters.

    And not to mention, this trade off gives me the best of three world's. Great physical keyboard, great virtual keyboard, and a large beautiful display.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    07-25-14 02:04 PM
  23. pp4e's Avatar
    This phone sounds really exciting.
    Hybrid, love it!
    How does the picture quality look with the camera??

    Z30 user and lover.
    Picture quality looks good on the phone, never uploaded it anywhere or transferred it to any computers though. Autofocus is good. Camera let's you choose to shoot in 1:1, 4:3, and 16:9 ratios. Camera shortcut on lockscreen opens camera after being pressed for 2 seconds, not sure if this is new or not.

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    07-25-14 02:07 PM
  24. m1kr0's Avatar
    Long press to open camera from lock screen not new.

    Z10 STL100-1, OS 10.2.1.3247
    07-25-14 02:09 PM
  25. pp4e's Avatar
    Long press to open camera from lock screen not new.

    Z10 STL100-1, OS 10.2.1.3247
    Haha, woops. It's all new to me, so apologies for that!

    Posted via CrackBerry App
    07-25-14 02:13 PM
183 123 ...

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