3 Days with a Z10 After a String of Other BB's. What I had to give up!

Twis’ Z10 Review

I have been an avid BlackBerry fan for about 10 years and have had 6 different blackberry phones (all with physical keyboards) and I also own a Playbook. Most recently I got the Z10 on the Rogers Network in Ontario Canada.

The changeover was the worst yet. That smooth transition from one device to the next that you as a loyal BB fan has become used to, forget about it. Calendar and Contacts did not transfer over at all. I was able to move the Calendar by using a Gmail account and syncing. Contacts (all 250+ of them) I managed to do through Bluetooth. But it was not painless, it was not efficient and it was unexpected. Going from one BlackBerry to another, they should have had this figured out. The fact that I also cannot Sync with Microsoft Outlook (the global standard) to keep Calendars and Contacts aligned is ridiculous.
So now I have the device and it looks very pretty. Interface is smooth and impressive. BlackBerry has its cool back. But…. Boy I have given up a lot going from my Torch 9810 to the Z10;

• Playbook Integration / Bridge
o No contacts
o No texting
o No email
o No bbm
o No promise of when if an update is coming

• Connectivity
o No UMA which I miss at home in the country where reception is poor and I used to leverage my Wi Fi. I will also miss it when I travel and can no longer have my phone act like I was in Toronto even when I was in Barbados but connected to a WiFi.

• Apps. I am not a big App guy but miss the following Apps
o OurGroceries
o WhatApp
o RBC Banking
o MyFitnessPal
o Blackberry traffic (forgot this one in my original post)
o A weather app that shows me on the lock screen or in the icon bar what the current temperature is. Where I am in Ontario it is not uncommon to have a 15 degree temperature swing in a single day.

• Rim network
o So my BBM’s and E-Mails are no longer secure, so a terrorist can find out my Wife needs me to pick up milk and diapers on my way home. Not a huge deal.
o But don’t I also lose the highly efficient and effective compression, speed and reliability that I always heard about. Am I not going to have more battery drain now and more data usage because I choose to upgrade??? This is my understanding.
o Then there is an ongoing debate on whether or not I lost push e-mail. I cant say for sure but I will say it takes me noticeable longer to get e-mails then my wife, who is still on a Torch, and has the same e-mail type.

As far as the BB10 OS goes, there are some nice things and some not so nice things. What you notice most is not what you gain, but what you lose.
For example giving up my keyboard means I also give up my shortcut keys for speed dialing. Before to call Joe on his Mobile number I used to just hold down the J on my Torch and I knew I would get Joe. Now I have to go into contacts and what do I see; Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe. I have 4 different numbers for Joe but what shows up is just Joe Joe Joe Joe, I have no ability from the dial screen to determine which Joe Entry is home, mobile, work, cottage. It is crazy. So I decide to send Joe an e-mail, same thing. I go to select Joe Personal but I have three e-mail addresses for Joe and nowhere in the contact selection screen can I see which Joe entry relates to work/personal/family e-mail address.
The keyboard, well what can I say. I define myself as a physical keyboard guy but; I was inpatient and wanted to try out BB10 NOW, and I thought if everybody is going that way it must have merit. After 3 days I figure I am slightly slower writing properly capitalized and punctuated professional dialogue. I am hugely slower if I accidentally include any abbreviations like “Cath” which automatically becomes Catholic, an error that takes me 20 seconds to fix. So all in all my typing speed is greatly reduced. I do however expect it to improve but I don’t know if I will ever be as fast on a touch.

So overall what can I say. Going to the Z10 was a painful transition. It made me give up a whole lot of stuff that has kept me with RIM for almost a decade and I am forced to learn a new OS all over again. The only compelling reason for me to remain with Blackberry is BBM, I gave up the network, security, UMA, Apps and Playbook Integration. If I had gone with a Samsung Galaxy I would have been no worse off and would have the apps.

All that said I am a loyalist and will probably hang in there waiting for the updates, I have already waited 2 years what’s another few months / years??? When it comes out I will get my Wife the Q10 and spend some quality time with it but overall I am disappointed.

I was using an iPhone before my current BB.

You nailed it on the head - physical keyboard. You should have waited for the Q10.

I said this the other day. When the Q10 is released, all the bugs in OS10 should be worked out. IMHO, the look and feel of the Q10, will have Z10 owners trading for it.:)

Thanks for the review! hopefully some of the issues will get worked out but many you mention are becuase of an actual keyboard. The q10 might just be the device for you.

My only big 'Lost Item' is BB traffic. I know the Z10 has the new updated and improved maps and GPS navigation. This works great for maps and GPS navigation, in fact I have already used to navigate from Toronto to Buffalo. Works good but needs some enhancements such as ETA and such. On my 9810 I used Bell's GPS navigation and it gave traffic, a re-route option around poor / bad traffic, ETA as well as the posted speed limit in KM (Use full when driving in the USA). Blackberry Traffic however was a totally different app. Not a Map guided system at all, but rather text and voice based but the cool thing was when you load a destination it always presented you with two routes and showed a great bar chart detailing traffic and the Estimated Driving and Arrival times. As a daily commuter in the Toronto Area this was priceless as I could quickly see if the highway or alternate routes were going to be faster. I so miss BB traffic and I hope for its return.

Hi thanks for giving us your experiences with Z10, I have read about the problem with transferring Calendar and Contacts and reading your post has me pretty much convinced to just take a deep breath, hang on to my 9900 and wait to see how the Q10 comes out. Hopefully with improvements and updates. I have no intention of ever leaving BlackBerry so I'll just kick back for a bit and see how things go. :)

Originally Posted by twis

Twis� Z10 Review

I have been an avid BlackBerry fan for about 10 years and have had 6 different blackberry phones (all with physical keyboards) and I also own a Playbook. Most recently I got the Z10 on the Rogers Network in Ontario Canada.

The changeover was the worst yet. That smooth transition from one device to the next that you as a loyal BB fan has become used to, forget about it. Calendar and Contacts did not transfer over at all. I was able to move the Calendar by using a Gmail account and syncing. Contacts (all 250+ of them) I managed to do through Bluetooth. But it was not painless, it was not efficient and it was unexpected. Going from one BlackBerry to another, they should have had this figured out. The fact that I also cannot Sync with Microsoft Outlook (the global standard) to keep Calendars and Contacts aligned is ridiculous.
So now I have the device and it looks very pretty. Interface is smooth and impressive. BlackBerry has its cool back. But�. Boy I have given up a lot going from my Torch 9810 to the Z10;

� Playbook Integration / Bridge
o No contacts
o No texting
o No email
o No bbm
o No promise of when if an update is coming

� Connectivity
o No UMA which I miss at home in the country where reception is poor and I used to leverage my Wi Fi. I will also miss it when I travel and can no longer have my phone act like I was in Toronto even when I was in Barbados but connected to a WiFi.

� Apps. I am not a big App guy but miss the following Apps
o OurGroceries
o WhatApp
o RBC Banking
o MyFitnessPal
o A weather app that shows me on the lock screen or in the icon bar what the current temperature is. Where I am in Ontario it is not uncommon to have a 15 degree temperature swing in a single day.

� Rim network
o So my BBM�s and E-Mails are no longer secure, so a terrorist can find out my Wife needs me to pick up milk and diapers on my way home. Not a huge deal.
o But don�t I also lose the highly efficient and effective compression, speed and reliability that I always heard about. Am I not going to have more battery drain now and more data usage because I choose to upgrade??? This is my understanding.
o Then there is an ongoing debate on whether or not I lost push e-mail. I cant say for sure but I will say it takes me noticeable longer to get e-mails then my wife, who is still on a Torch, and has the same e-mail type.

As far as the BB10 OS goes, there are some nice things and some not so nice things. What you notice most is not what you gain, but what you lose.
For example giving up my keyboard means I also give up my shortcut keys for speed dialing. Before to call Joe on his Mobile number I used to just hold down the J on my Torch and I knew I would get Joe. Now I have to go into contacts and what do I see; Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe. I have 4 different numbers for Joe but what shows up is just Joe Joe Joe Joe, I have no ability from the dial screen to determine which Joe Entry is home, mobile, work, cottage. It is crazy. So I decide to send Joe an e-mail, same thing. I go to select Joe Personal but I have three e-mail addresses for Joe and nowhere in the contact selection screen can I see which Joe entry relates to work/personal/family e-mail address.
The keyboard, well what can I say. I define myself as a physical keyboard guy but; I was inpatient and wanted to try out BB10 NOW, and I thought if everybody is going that way it must have merit. After 3 days I figure I am slightly slower writing properly capitalized and punctuated professional dialogue. I am hugely slower if I accidentally include any abbreviations like �Cath� which automatically becomes Catholic, an error that takes me 20 seconds to fix. So all in all my typing speed is greatly reduced. I do however expect it to improve but I don�t know if I will ever be as fast on a touch.

So overall what can I say. Going to the Z10 was a painful transition. It made me give up a whole lot of stuff that has kept me with RIM for almost a decade and I am forced to learn a new OS all over again. The only compelling reason for me to remain with Blackberry is BBM, I gave up the network, security, UMA, Apps and Playbook Integration. If I had gone with a Samsung Galaxy I would have been no worse off and would have the apps.

All that said I am a loyalist and will probably hang in there waiting for the updates, I have already waited 2 years what�s another few months / years??? When it comes out I will get my Wife the Q10 and spend some quality time with it but overall I am disappointed.

Yup, forgot about BB Traffic which was invaluable whenever I was going into Toronto. That said I have not yet tried BB Maps on the Z10.

Agreed - BB Traffic is awesome and I don't even bother to use my TomTom anymore. I certainly do hope BB traffic will be adapted to the new BB10 asap. Also I wonder about Quicklaunch or will it just be redundant in BB10 and of course Berry weather.

Originally Posted by pinkert11

My only big 'Lost Item' is BB traffic. I know the Z10 has the new updated and improved maps and GPS navigation. This works great for maps and GPS navigation, in fact I have already used to navigate from Toronto to Buffalo. Works good but needs some enhancements such as ETA and such. On my 9810 I used Bell's GPS navigation and it gave traffic, a re-route option around poor / bad traffic, ETA as well as the posted speed limit in KM (Use full when driving in the USA). Blackberry Traffic however was a totally different app. Not a Map guided system at all, but rather text and voice based but the cool thing was when you load a destination it always presented you with two routes and showed a great bar chart detailing traffic and the Estimated Driving and Arrival times. As a daily commuter in the Toronto Area this was priceless as I could quickly see if the highway or alternate routes were going to be faster. I so miss BB traffic and I hope for its return.

Yup, you are correct. I love the big screen but for actually communicating I think I will want the Q10 keyboard. Luckily for me I pay for 3 phones on my plan (2 torches and now a Z10) and all 3 were eligible for an upgrade so I can get me a Q10 and give somebody else the Z10! He who pays the piper picks the tune...

Originally Posted by howarmat

Thanks for the review! hopefully some of the issues will get worked out but many you mention are becuase of an actual keyboard. The q10 might just be the device for you.

@OP

Thanks for the review. :)

sent from my sexy PlayBook using Tapatalk2 (*_~)

As others have said above, I miss BB Traffic! If they could integrate its features into BB Maps, it would make a BB well worth the money just as a kick*** GPS!

OP: FYI - OurGroceries works fine as a sideloaded android app (the UI is a bit different than on BB OS7, but still quite functional).

Ok OP... I'm going to make an attempt to assist you. Not sure if it will help but try I will.

For your contacts... like Joe. Sinc you have 4 different entries for joe, you can "marry" them. Press and hold one, the side bar pops up, click the check mark box, then tap all 4 of his contacts, then link them. Before doing this, I would go in and assign the numbers accordingly, like cell, home, office... etc. I don't know for sure what would happen if all the different numbers said home so I wouldn't take the chance.

For your typing.... you used the example of cath turning to catholic (I assume that's what showed up in the space bar?). In the fret above the space bar, you should see cath. Just flick up as you would other word suggestions. After a few times of this, the keyboard will not correct that particular word.

Your BBM still runs throught the BIS servers, but email does not. You can go to your email settings and add ssl encryption. Will be fine and your groceries will be safe.

Bridge should be coming back to its previous funcionality. Don't quote me on that though as I cannot provide any proof. Personally, and I know it's just me, I prefer to use my phone for emails, texts, bbm...etc anyway.

That's it for now...Hope it was at least a tad helpful.

Thanks CJ. Appreciate your help and happy to learn about the swip up so I am not calling my Wife Catholic.

So yes I found the contact "Link" functionality and it is great, allowed me to quickly clean up my contacts so that I only have one entry in my contacts for Joe. Problem is still that wne I go to my hub and hit compose e-mail then click the "+" in the To: column and I see three Jim's.

Thanks

Twis

Originally Posted by twis

Thanks CJ. Appreciate your help and happy to learn about the swip up so I am not calling my Wife Catholic.

So yes I found the contact "Link" functionality and it is great, allowed me to quickly clean up my contacts so that I only have one entry in my contacts for Joe. Problem is still that wne I go to my hub and hit compose e-mail then click the "+" in the To: column and I see three Jim's.

Thanks

Twis

I'm glad the keyboard is helping but now for the email. Don't hit the plus button... just start to type Joe... it will bring up the list of email address' for him and you just choose one.

I added all swear words, short forms, and lingos to dictionary. if you tap on the underlined word a box comes up and you can add it to the dictionary and if you spell the word cath, it wont autocorrect it unless you have begun to type another letter.

Not 100% sure about the 'inner workings' but its been good for me. I hated the PG13 rating of the keyboard until I added in my own words.

With time I will get there at learns my vocabulary.


Posted using CrackBerry App on BB10

Another tip is that you can turn off the option where pressing the space key automatically inserts the autocorrected word. You would consciously have to swipe the words up in order to get suggestions, and autocorrect will not interfere.