[tfitzpat03]

I know there are like a million threads like this. I just want to keep it simple.

I am considering a PRIV as a business phone and it comes down to these two things for me. Battery and Keyboard. Just to give a little of my blackberry background, I have used a z10 and a passport as my last two blackberry phones. Seems like the PRIV would be a good combination between both.

How would you guys rate it?

[newcollector]

Having used a Z10 and then the Passport and now on the Priv, I would say the Priv exceeded my expectations. The battery life is much better than the Z10 and pretty much comparable with the Passport. It didn't take me long to get used to the physical keyboard. I know there are a lot of naysayers as far as the pkb, but I like it.

I would rate the phone a 9 just because I don't want to sound too enthusiastic. The screen is really sweet and the way the BlackBerry suite of apps makes it feel a lot like bb10.

I did move to Nova Launcher Premier so that I can keep a cleaner screen and use a lot of gestures to open apps. It also pins the wallpaper so it doesn't move when sliding from home screen to another screen. Pet peeve of mine.

[iPomps]

My keyboard is a little bit hard to press. The buttons require a bit of an actual press, which slows me down. It's not new, I've had it over a year.

This is compared to my bold and torch.

That's all

[glwerry]

My path: Classic to PRIV.
Battery: 10. I am on my SECOND FULL DAY and at 1 pm I have 51% battery. It's not this good every day, but I get through a full day 99% of the time.

Keyboard: not quite as good as the Classic, but still VERY usable. I have read that compared to the Passport the 4th row of keys is very handy, although you'll find the width hard to deal with coming from the Passport. Still, a very good keyboard.

[Rico4you]

Get easily full day and more with battery, incredible screen and with both keyboards have the best of both worlds! Basically error free on PKB! Overall excellent device PRIV especially with constant updates from BlackBerry. This Saturday Mercury is launched you cam compare..but smaller screen..I enjoy screen real estate!

[mad_mdx]

You'll need a few days before you start getting the decent battery life people talk about. It's not as good as the passport, but should last a whole day.
The keyboard is actually surprisingly good. I cant believe how many people say the keys are too shallow, its nearly identical to the key travel on my original passport, but obviously the keyboard is more narrow. The thing is, you probably wont need to use the keyboard since the virtual keyboard is fantastic out of the box. Coming from a passport, I'm only bummed out because of the full keyboard, as I really prefer having the 3 row keyboard since being a passport user.

Great device, the only thing id complain about is the "cheaper" feeling of the rubberized back, I feel like the z30 and passport had a more premium feel to their backs. But at the size of this device, it helps a lot to have the grip that comes with that material.

[Fordboy50]

Battery 10. Keyboard 8. It does take a little while to get used to the PKB but it is pretty good

[Wezard]

Battery a 9, I get two days most of the time. But this takes some tweaking, and going easy with the social apps. Everything Android has every possible way to use data and location ON or enabled by default, which uses power. Even a heavy user should get a full day. Now if you use it as your laptop, and have the screen on all the time, it's not going to cut it, but neither will anything else. I'm coming from Classic, Bold, Torch and Z10, battey is as good or better.

Keyboard is an 8, when you first start using it, it just feels cramped and wrong, but after a week or two, it's actually pretty decent.

You didn't ask about the screen, but it's a 12 out of 10, just awesome. Battery/Screen trick, in your most normal lighting scenario, turn adaptive brightness off, adjust the screen to a comfortable level then turn adaptive back on.

[medic22003]

If you aren't a big gamer or one of those folks that spends hours on YouTube you should easily get a full day out of it. Mine had been off the charger for about 12 hours and was still at 50%. I haven't used it a lot today but I typically have about 35% battery left by midnight. I think my z30 was a little better on battery but not enough to bring up. This is my first pkb phone and I love the pkb. Use it almost as much as I use the vkb which I was very Used to and satisfied with from using a z10 and z30. That said I'd give it a 9. Battery a 9 for my usage. Mine doesn't and never has had the heating or battery issues some complain a bout. I'd buy another one tomorrow if I needed to. Been using mine for a year In March and it's been great

[Nathan Conley]

Battery 7, PKB 8, VKB 9.

The battery is okay. Good perhaps, but the QHD screen does chew up battery life fairly fast. SOT is between 4:45-6:00 for me.

The physical keyboard is surprisingly good although a little cramped. I use it solely when entering longer text or when precision is required.

The virtual keyboard is the most accurate I've used both in two fingered mode and in swipe mode.

As far as a business phone on android, there isn't a better one out there. The only phones that come close are the Note series from Samsung. I assume we will find out a lot on Saturday with the Mercury. If the speculation is true, I assume the battery life will crush all competition. This is due to a FHD 4.2-4.5" screen and the battery miser SD 625, with approximately a 3200 mAh battery.

Edited to add screen and camera review. The screen is a 10/10. Fantastic color rendering, excellent max brightness, and hard to scratch with GG4. I've had my Priv for a little over a year now without a case all along, and I don't have even a hint of a smallest scratch.

The rear camera is fantastic (8.5/10). Not the best on the market, but can match the best in outdoor photos in good light. Low light photos are fairly good. HDR processing is above average. The selfie cam is not good at all (6/10). Luckily for me, I never use it. The only plus to the selfie cam is it's larger pixels do an okay job in low light.

[cmdaga]

How is everyone getting such brilliant battery life on the PRIV? I am struggling to get a single 12 hour day.

I am a medium user. Location, Wifi and the works remain turned off. Only data chews through the battery. And if I use the hardware keyboard, the battery drains even more quickly.

[Nathan Conley]

How is everyone getting such brilliant battery life on the PRIV? I am struggling to get a single 12 hour day.

I am a medium user. Location, Wifi and the works remain turned off. Only data chews through the battery. And if I use the hardware keyboard, the battery drains even more quickly.

As you can see, my SOT is 3:20 with 65% battery usage. That's around 5:00 SOT total. That's not too shaby, but could only be described as decent or okay.

I'm not doing anything special. Adaptive brightness is on .

[Nathan Conley]

Here's the battery summary.

[treo_knight]

Battery: This is subjective. You need to compare it to a benchmark.
Compared to Z10 : 10
Compared to Z30 or Passport: 5

In summary the battery can get you through a day of usage provided you don't do hours of gaming or exceed 3 hr SOT.

Keyboard :

Blackberry VKB : Exactly the same as Z10 or 30. Much better than other Android or iOS keyboards. Rating : 9-10.

BlackBerry PKB : Cramped compared to the Bold, Passport and Q10 but it still rates a healthy 7-8.

[tfitzpat03]

Thanks for all the replies guys. I will wait to see what the mercury has to offer. The priv is still a good choice.

I don't do a lot of gaming. Temple run 2 and Dan the man are two games that I play for no more than 10-15 minutes at a time. I could play those games on my tablet though so that is not a big deal.

Just looking to get back to using a keyboard.

[Wezard]

How is everyone getting such brilliant battery life on the PRIV? I am struggling to get a single 12 hour day.

I am a medium user. Location, Wifi and the works remain turned off. Only data chews through the battery. And if I use the hardware keyboard, the battery drains even more quickly.

Have you restricted background data usage for the many apps that don't need it, but use it anyway? And make sure WiFi and Bluetooth scanning is off.

[cmdaga]

Have you restricted background data usage for the many apps that don't need it, but use it anyway? And make sure WiFi and Bluetooth scanning is off.

Yes. I have.

[NullK]

I'm new to the Priv and noticed that, in the firsty week or so, I was oinly using about 1% battery life per hour with about 5 email accounts being updated.
Then I installed Tox -- a chat program. The next day I was at 68% battery at about 11:00 and, when I plugged in a charger, I was confroted with about 4 hours of approximated charge time.
The point being that one "app" can kill the battery very quickly -- I tend to find this better than my 9900 as far as battery life goes though, I admit, having just given up the Bold the batteries may not have been fresh.
Keyboard: I think I preferred the keyvboard on the Bold to any Blackberry I had used and this does come close but lacks a "cursor key" and the otherwise clever touchpad functionality seem to get in the way to me.

[fanisk]

Owned in the past both devices my experience is :

Physical keyboard : a bit cramped in comparison with the passport but after a week I got used on it and write as fast as on the passport. I can rate it 8

Battery life : about 30% less than the passport, under GSM I never managed to get a full day , at about 18h I am at about 10-15% and need to plug to my potable battery bunk. I can rate it at 6

[cmdaga]

While I understand that an app can kill the battery, we have to realize that the same app has no impact on the battery life of other manufacturer handsets like Samsung or Lenovo / Motorola.

It is a pity that BlackBerry is unable to handle this when they actually can.

Posted via BlackBerry Z30

[Nathan Conley]

While I understand that an app can kill the battery, we have to realize that the same app has no impact on the battery life of other manufacturer handsets like Samsung or Lenovo / Motorola.

It is a pity that BlackBerry is unable to handle this when they actually can.

Posted via BlackBerry Z30

5-6 hours SOT with QHD isn't horrible. Ask Samsung if they would take that with the self destruct phones.

Consensus is yay.

[Wezard]

While I understand that an app can kill the battery, we have to realize that the same app has no impact on the battery life of other manufacturer handsets like Samsung or Lenovo / Motorola.

I see this comment all the time, but invariably a quick search shows the app in question to be a battery and/or data hog across all platforms. BB is using pretty much plain vanilla Android, so unless app has been written for one of the heavily skinned or modified OS's, (like Samsung) it's going to do pretty much the same thing regardless of device brand.
Any social networking or chat/instant messaging app is going to consume a lot of battery and data. By design and to work properly, they are always on, running and connected in the background.
The amount of time you are in WiFi coverage will have a big impact on how much these types of apps burn through battery.
And most of the comparisons are with devices that have smaller, and/or non QHD screens.

[erose75]

Day one, I would give the pkb a 5 or 6. After a month I'd say 8 or 9. They keys seems to have broken in over time, at least for me. Still not as good as my Q10, but if Q10 was a 10, priv would be 8 comparatively IMO.

I like the swipe on the vkb for quick text message replies.

Battery for me has been fine. I keep it on a cradle at the office so I usually get home with close to 100% battery. If I do a lot of screen time it will be down to 20% by 11pm, so 6-7 hours from 100 to 20.

I did just travel with my priv for the first time and was going nonstop from 9am to midnight most days and still had plenty of juice at the end. Not a lot of screen time...more just checking messages regularly.

[NullK]

While I understand that an app can kill the battery, we have to realize that the same app has no impact on the battery life of other manufacturer handsets like Samsung or Lenovo / Motorola.

It is a pity that BlackBerry is unable to handle this when they actually can.

Posted via BlackBerry Z30

A friend, using another brand of handset (really don't recall whther it's Samsung or Sony), noticed the app I mentioned killed his phone also.
I'd like to see a real task-manager but - don't seem to have one on the Pirv?
My typo's, by the way, are due to being used to an actual spell check on the Bold and preferring to mistype than use Autocolonoscopy.

[kikipintre]

Hi everyone
I like keyboard but battery... I'm with charger all day..