- I've been using an iPhone for the past three years, and I've been itching to get back to Blackberry. Finally the Q10 came out and I grabbed one on Wind Mobile. Here are my impressions.
First the build quality of the phone is awesome. It feels super solid and has no creakiness or noise when you squeeze it, the rear battery door stays firmly in place. I like the rubbery grip of the back cover that is provides just enough friction so that it doesn't slide out of the hand, but not so much that it impedes you from easily sliding it in and out of your pocket. The keyboard is excellent, nice solid clicks but with very little noise, much improved from my experience with the 9700's squishy keyboard. The phone call quality is great, so much louder and clearer than my iPhone. Also impressive is the battery life. After unplugging the phone at 7am, and using the phone as I use my iPhone, I still had 50% battery life the next morning at the same time.
Now the operating system. Coming from iOS things are a little bit different, but I've been able to figure mostly everything out without consulting the manual. Switching between apps is superior to iOS, and I like how its clear which apps are open, and that they can provide information to you through their icon on the home screen. I'm still getting used to the concept of the Hub but generally I think it's better implementation than it's equivalent Notification Center on iOS. Although it seems the Hub is more for core notifications like emails, sms, phone calls, while Notification Center is more for third party apps. Does Blackberry provide the necessary APIs to developers in order to integrate their apps into the Hub?
The core apps. This is where I have the biggest problems with the new phone. Some of the bundled apps are great, and beat anything iOS comes with, for example Docs to Go (iOS has no built in equivalent), the calculator/converter is excellent, Weather is better than iOS's default, and File Manager (it still annoys me that Apple decided against having a proper file system in iOS).
Some aren't so good. The maps app is bad. It is very, very slow to load. So slow it's practically unusable for me. Instead of having the option buttons at the bottom, and the search bar at the top, they should have combined them into one line to save screen real estate. And its final nail in the coffin is that it doesn't seems to have map data for much of Asia, which is where I am quite often. I hope that either Blackberry improves it, or Google releases their maps app on BB10. In the mean time I'll be using Google's web version, but I would much prefer a proper native app.
The much lauded browser isn't as good as I was lead to believe. A major sticking point for me seems to be that most websites don't seem to identify the Blackberry Browser's user agent ID, which means they load up into normal desktop mode. On a screen like the Q10's, this makes them unreadable. Then I either have to guess what the mobile website address is, or navigate around the page and hope to find a link somewhere (always buried in tiny text, making it harder to find). This is really annoying. A simple solution would be to allow us the option to pick alternate user agent IDs such as mobile safari, opera mini, chrome, etc. Specific to the Q10, it would be nice to have the option to browse full screen without the address bar and perhaps just one translucent icon in the corner to bring up the menu.
Third party apps. While I have my share of third party apps on iOS, there's only a few that I use all the time and I consider essentials. Twitter obviously is built in, but after getting Blaq, I can easily say it beats the built in Twitter client on both BB10 and iOS by a mile. XE currency is something I'm always using on iOS and I'm very happy to see it's pretty much identical (and free) on BB10. The tumblr client Trapeez could use some improvements though, although I guess the dev is spending all their time making Blaq. Soundhound is nice, and I haven't gotten Skype but I will soon.
What I absolutely need to make the phone perfect: Instagram (I think everyone agrees here, its a must), A proper RSS feed reader (I've tried gNewsReader, it's junk), WeChat (this is absolutely huge in Asia), Line (again huge in Asia), and a Chinese-English dictionary (ala Pleco). The rest of third party apps I use generally aren't necessary, like games, or can be replaced by smart HTML5 web apps. But the aforementioned ones are very important to me.
Anyways I hope this post proves useful to those on the fence who have an iPhone and are thinking of switching to BB. I also hope that some of my gripes will soon be fixed as I know the OS is still in its infancy and the people at BB are working very hard and fast to make things the best they can be. Finally, if anyone has any suggestions on dealing with my problems above, I'd much appreciate your advice.06-22-13 08:09 AMLike 3 -
- I find the Q10 a more business oriented device for me. It will never fully replace the full touch screen device and surely can't match the apps that apple has at this point. But if you want a "get it done device" then the Q10 is the right device!
Posted via CB10BryantCarpio likes this.06-22-13 08:28 AMLike 1 - I did something I never thought I would. I bought a Z10 and was so dissapointed with the reboots that I sold it and bought the new HTC One. After using the phone for 6 weeks ( awesome phone btw!!! ) I sold it today and bought a q10.. I don't know why because the HTC one is a better phone in every way but I don't regret it yet. I love the q10.. just hope that it doesn't reboot randomly.. happy so far with the phone
Posted via CB1006-22-13 08:43 AMLike 0 - I suspect that your browser's desktop mode is set to on. Maybe double check it in the settings... by pressing the overflow button at bottom right corner beside the address box.
Google Maps, Instagram and Wechat 4.3 is available for sideload, so as QQ. You may have to do research to find the ones runs smooth and stable but it's likely you will find it.
Enjoy your Q10.06-22-13 08:51 AMLike 0 - I did something I never thought I would. I bought a Z10 and was so dissapointed with the reboots that I sold it and bought the new HTC One. After using the phone for 6 weeks ( awesome phone btw!!! ) I sold it today and bought a q10.. I don't know why because the HTC one is a better phone in every way but I don't regret it yet. I love the q10.. just hope that it doesn't reboot randomly.. happy so far with the phone
Posted via CB1006-22-13 08:52 AMLike 0 - I'm trying to make all my iPhone friends to switch over to a BlackBerry. They all hate their Apple phones. Since they are all girls (not trying to be sexist here), Android phones are too big so that knocks out one alternative. I say that they should get a BlackBerry, but they say that they don't want a keyboard and that the Z10 looks "just like the iPhone" and is "ugly like a brick."
What I'll do is read this very thorough post to them and see what they say. They aren't that big on apps so that shouldn't be a problem.
Oh, and I'll show them my new phone, of course!
Posted via CB10dtsoll likes this.06-22-13 09:08 AMLike 1 - I've never had a iPhone, so I can't chime in on the comparisons. I just wanted to commend you on such a levelheaded post and review. It's a rarity these days. Thanks. It made good reading...
Posted via CB10H_O_Boomaye and cky_ like this.06-22-13 09:52 AMLike 2 - well, tons of my friends have either already made the switch from iphone to bb, or are about to asap.06-22-13 10:01 AMLike 0
- I kinda disagree gNewsreader is junk, it is by far the best RSS reader I ve used on symbian, meego and bb. The developer is very responsive and provides great support. I remember using a previous symbian device with AMOLED screen and would love articles to be shown with dark background, send a request to the developer and it was implemented in the next release and this unique has been in the app since then even on the BlackBerry version. The initial Q10 version also has a splash screen image distorted, I requested a fix and it was fix is less than 2 weeks.
Posted via CB1006-22-13 10:01 AMLike 0 - The much lauded browser isn't as good as I was lead to believe. A major sticking point for me seems to be that most websites don't seem to identify the Blackberry Browser's user agent ID, which means they load up into normal desktop mode. On a screen like the Q10's, this makes them unreadable. Then I either have to guess what the mobile website address is, or navigate around the page and hope to find a link somewhere (always buried in tiny text, making it harder to find). This is really annoying. A simple solution would be to allow us the option to pick alternate user agent IDs such as mobile safari, opera mini, chrome, etc. Specific to the Q10, it would be nice to have the option to browse full screen without the address bar and perhaps just one translucent icon in the corner to bring up the menu.cky_ likes this.06-22-13 10:08 AMLike 1
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- 06-22-13 10:33 AMLike 0
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Awesome full hd 4.7 ich screen for browsing and media
Amazing looks
Boomsounds works really great
App selection is much better
Call quality is better
Camera is better
Amazing mail app on the htc
Only the keyboard of the q10 is better
But still I like my q10 better because I always used qwerty BlackBerry devices in the past and I like the smaller form factor. Plus I like what the q10 says about a person. So for me I go q10 all the way but I will not argue with people who claim that the htc one is a better phone because it is. Only it's not the phone for me I found out because I'm using my phone as a phone and not as a tablet. I have a microsoft surface for that.
Posted via CB1006-22-13 11:03 AMLike 0 - I suspect that your browser's desktop mode is set to on. Maybe double check it in the settings... by pressing the overflow button at bottom right corner beside the address box.
Google Maps, Instagram and Wechat 4.3 is available for sideload, so as QQ. You may have to do research to find the ones runs smooth and stable but it's likely you will find it.
Enjoy your Q10.06-22-13 11:53 AMLike 0 - I kinda disagree gNewsreader is junk, it is by far the best RSS reader I ve used on symbian, meego and bb. The developer is very responsive and provides great support. I remember using a previous symbian device with AMOLED screen and would love articles to be shown with dark background, send a request to the developer and it was implemented in the next release and this unique has been in the app since then even on the BlackBerry version. The initial Q10 version also has a splash screen image distorted, I requested a fix and it was fix is less than 2 weeks.
Posted via CB1006-22-13 12:00 PMLike 0 - I know iOS doesn't come preloaded with a docs to go comparable but for $10 you can buy iWork suite which blows away docs to go and offers icloud sync.
I am disappointed that Blackberry did not upgrade the docs to go app. At least let people create PowerPoint docs and insert pictures into word docs.bbfan1040 likes this.06-22-13 07:15 PMLike 1 -
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- Sorry I didn't mean to disparage gNewsReader so harshly, and I didn't know the dev is working hard like that. I guess coming from Byline on iOS it just seems very far away in comparison. I really miss the ability to cache the feeds, and I don't just mean the feeds and their content, but the actual web sites they link to. This feature is excellent for loading up all your news in the morning and then reading on your commute, or if you're on an airplane and there's no connection. It's also handy since so many blogs have a tendency to truncate their posts in the RSS feed, forcing you to load the web page.
@yogeshwarp
Posted via CB1006-22-13 08:15 PMLike 0 - Not everybody has access to a charger all of the time.
Posted via CB10 on VZW STL100-4RubberChicken76 and dusdal like this.06-22-13 08:22 PMLike 2
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