[EvanKr]

Hey everyone,

I haven't posted here since the BB7 days, back when I was stuck between a Bold and a Torch. Well, I eventually decided to forgo that option and go with an unlocked HP Veer, which I got a great deal on from a guy in the States. About a year later after I bought the Veer, or about a month ago from now, I decided it was time to upgrade. I found an HTC 8S on sale for $150 on Virgin (an awesome deal, IMO), so I picked it up, unlocked it and have been using it for the past month. I've been pretty satisfied with WP8 and was fairly convinced I'd stay with it for at least a year.

Anyways, a few days ago I get an email from MobileSyrup (a Canadian mobile news and reviews site for those wondering - if you're a Canadian phone junkie I highly recommend you check them out) saying that I've won their latest contest, and I get a free brand new Z10. This came as a surprise, I'm one of those guys who never wins anything, the best I get is a free coffee during Roll up the Rim (and being a Tim's employee I never get to claim it ), but now I've got an unlocked Z10 coming my way that will be on my doorstep in 2 days, I'm pretty pumped.

However, I'm beginning to wonder if I should keep the Z10, or sell it on Kijiji and get an HTC One instead. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that the Z10's a great phone, but it may just not be for me. Hopefully you guys can help me come to a consensus...

My first major priority is that it HAS to have a good browser, and one that's good with data compression as I'm on a limited plan. I use my phone for pretty heavy browsing every day, from doing simple research and reading to streaming content from a variety of news and TV sites. Does the Z10 support Flash? It would be an absolute godsent if it did; my Veer supported Flash (albeit fairly poorly, especially with the 2.6" display), but it let me browse desktop sites that would've otherwise been off limits. How well does Flash work on the Z10?

The Z10 also has to multitask well. By that, I mean that apps must stay fully running in the background when I minimize them. One of the problems that I've been having with WP is that when I switch out of the browser, Grooveshark will refresh and stop itself. Or when I minimize a music downloader, it will suspend the download. My biggest gripe is that when I leave the browser momentarily, switch into another application and click a link that takes me to the browser, it completely disregards the previous webpage that I had opened, and I need to reload it when I want to go back to what I was doing earlier. Also, being limited to about 5 apps before they start closing themselves pisses me off. How well does multitasking work on the Z10? Will it stop me from longing for webOS again?

Next, I need something that integrates with Box well. I got 50GB of free Box storage with an HP TouchPad that I bought almost 2 years ago during the fire sale, and I'm still using it today. It's an excellent alternative to carrying around a portable HDD or emailing documents to myself, so I'd like a phone that can not only automatically save documents to Box, but that can also save photos, videos, and other multimedia to the cloud as well. Anyone have experience with this?

On the topic of productivity, something with a good PDF reader and office client would be a bonus too. Those are two applications that I use quite often for school, and as of right now I haven't been able to find a decent PDF reader for WP, so that's a fairly important priority for me.

Going onto communication, being a BlackBerry I'm assuming that it can handle email, SMS and FaceBook with ease. Those are really my only 3 priorities, as long as they work well I'm good. And oh yeah, it has to make phone calls too in case I ever need to ever call somebody. But considering I only used about 20 minutes last month, it's not a huge priority. who calls people anymore?

Something that I'd absolutely love to be able to do is make mobile payments. I've never owned a phone with NFC before, and it's something that I've always been envious about that my Android friends can all do. In case it makes a difference, my carrier is Koodo, my bank is CIBC, and I live in Winnipeg. Does BB10 have a CIBC app, and does it have any sort of mobile wallet functionality, � la Google Wallet?

Speaking of NFC, can I use it with NFC tags to launch applications, set alarms, or change settings? This would be great, as I know that with Android you can make quick, convenient settings changes with the tags. Does BB10 have this functionality?

Moving onto apps, another concern of mine. While BB10 does have around 130 000 applications, I still don't know if it'll be sufficient. I don't use apps like Skype, Instagram, Netflix, etc, so many concerns that other may have don't matter to me. However, it has to have the basics. So weather, Shazam, games like Cut the Rope or Flow, a good Reddit app, dictionary/thesaurus, a flashlight app, a Flickr app, a fitness tracker app (I use MyFitnessPal, is that available?), a YouTube music downloader app, a translator, CBC News, Yelp, a Transit app (any apps that work with Winnipeg Transit?), and hopefully a metronome and chromatic tuner app as well. Another app that I can't get with WP and is really killing me right now is a data tracker. I only get about 200MB per month, and have to rely on carrier SMS messages to tell my my data consumption. In other words, unreliable sources are there apps for BB10 that would let me do that?

On the topic of apps, how well does sideloading Android apps work? I'm sure that they're buggier than native BB10 apps would be, but are they still relatively usable? What apps can and can't be ported?

Finally, the main reason that would sway me to Android would be customizability and hackability. I'm not sure how many of you here enjoy hacking, rooting, loading custom ROMs, etc, but that's always been my cup of tea and I'm not too sure that BB10 will give me that ability. Right now on WP the lack of customizability is really irking me. Sure, you get "live tiles" and "accent colours", but other than that it's just too simple and lacking customizability. What exactly would the BB10 equivalent be of rooting, or installing homebrew apps? I'm assuming that the community isn't as robust as it is with Android, but is there still a community that works with that kind of stuff? I tweaked the hell out of my Veer and webOS as a whole, and it's something that I deeply missed when I switched to WP. Anyone here familiar with hacking and tweaking BB10?

Anyways, that's about all I have to ask. Sorry for the extremely long post, I have a ton of questions and I know that you guys are the #1 BB experts on the internet, so I figured you guys would be the ones to talk to \

So should I keep the Z10? Will it satisfy my needs? Or, should I jump ship to Android?

Thanks in advance, hope to hear from you all soon,
-Evan

[EvanKr]

BUMP

Any advice on what I should do?

[glidewells]

The Z10 should cover all of the needs that you mentioned except for the rooting, as far as I know there is no way to "Root" this phone.

Worst case scenario, try it for a week to see if it covers your needs, if not sell it then.

Posted via CB10

[dale-c]

Sounds like you need a z10.

Posted via CB10

[ciabo]

Hey everyone,

I haven't posted here since the BB7 days, back when I was stuck between a Bold and a Torch. Well, I eventually decided to forgo that option and go with an unlocked HP Veer, which I got a great deal on from a guy in the States. About a year later after I bought the Veer, or about a month ago from now, I decided it was time to upgrade. I found an HTC 8S on sale for $150 on Virgin (an awesome deal, IMO), so I picked it up, unlocked it and have been using it for the past month. I've been pretty satisfied with WP8 and was fairly convinced I'd stay with it for at least a year.

Anyways, a few days ago I get an email from MobileSyrup (a Canadian mobile news and reviews site for those wondering - if you're a Canadian phone junkie I highly recommend you check them out) saying that I've won their latest contest, and I get a free brand new Z10. This came as a surprise, I'm one of those guys who never wins anything, the best I get is a free coffee during Roll up the Rim (and being a Tim's employee I never get to claim it ), but now I've got an unlocked Z10 coming my way that will be on my doorstep in 2 days, I'm pretty pumped.

However, I'm beginning to wonder if I should keep the Z10, or sell it on Kijiji and get an HTC One instead. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that the Z10's a great phone, but it may just not be for me. Hopefully you guys can help me come to a consensus...

My first major priority is that it HAS to have a good browser, and one that's good with data compression as I'm on a limited plan. I use my phone for pretty heavy browsing every day, from doing simple research and reading to streaming content from a variety of news and TV sites. Does the Z10 support Flash? It would be an absolute godsent if it did; my Veer supported Flash (albeit fairly poorly, especially with the 2.6" display), but it let me browse desktop sites that would've otherwise been off limits. How well does Flash work on the Z10?

The Z10 also has to multitask well. By that, I mean that apps must stay fully running in the background when I minimize them. One of the problems that I've been having with WP is that when I switch out of the browser, Grooveshark will refresh and stop itself. Or when I minimize a music downloader, it will suspend the download. My biggest gripe is that when I leave the browser momentarily, switch into another application and click a link that takes me to the browser, it completely disregards the previous webpage that I had opened, and I need to reload it when I want to go back to what I was doing earlier. Also, being limited to about 5 apps before they start closing themselves pisses me off. How well does multitasking work on the Z10? Will it stop me from longing for webOS again?

Next, I need something that integrates with Box well. I got 50GB of free Box storage with an HP TouchPad that I bought almost 2 years ago during the fire sale, and I'm still using it today. It's an excellent alternative to carrying around a portable HDD or emailing documents to myself, so I'd like a phone that can not only automatically save documents to Box, but that can also save photos, videos, and other multimedia to the cloud as well. Anyone have experience with this?

On the topic of productivity, something with a good PDF reader and office client would be a bonus too. Those are two applications that I use quite often for school, and as of right now I haven't been able to find a decent PDF reader for WP, so that's a fairly important priority for me.

Going onto communication, being a BlackBerry I'm assuming that it can handle email, SMS and FaceBook with ease. Those are really my only 3 priorities, as long as they work well I'm good. And oh yeah, it has to make phone calls too in case I ever need to ever call somebody. But considering I only used about 20 minutes last month, it's not a huge priority. who calls people anymore?

Something that I'd absolutely love to be able to do is make mobile payments. I've never owned a phone with NFC before, and it's something that I've always been envious about that my Android friends can all do. In case it makes a difference, my carrier is Koodo, my bank is CIBC, and I live in Winnipeg. Does BB10 have a CIBC app, and does it have any sort of mobile wallet functionality, � la Google Wallet?

Speaking of NFC, can I use it with NFC tags to launch applications, set alarms, or change settings? This would be great, as I know that with Android you can make quick, convenient settings changes with the tags. Does BB10 have this functionality?

Moving onto apps, another concern of mine. While BB10 does have around 130 000 applications, I still don't know if it'll be sufficient. I don't use apps like Skype, Instagram, Netflix, etc, so many concerns that other may have don't matter to me. However, it has to have the basics. So weather, Shazam, games like Cut the Rope or Flow, a good Reddit app, dictionary/thesaurus, a flashlight app, a Flickr app, a fitness tracker app (I use MyFitnessPal, is that available?), a YouTube music downloader app, a translator, CBC News, Yelp, a Transit app (any apps that work with Winnipeg Transit?), and hopefully a metronome and chromatic tuner app as well. Another app that I can't get with WP and is really killing me right now is a data tracker. I only get about 200MB per month, and have to rely on carrier SMS messages to tell my my data consumption. In other words, unreliable sources are there apps for BB10 that would let me do that?

On the topic of apps, how well does sideloading Android apps work? I'm sure that they're buggier than native BB10 apps would be, but are they still relatively usable? What apps can and can't be ported?

Finally, the main reason that would sway me to Android would be customizability and hackability. I'm not sure how many of you here enjoy hacking, rooting, loading custom ROMs, etc, but that's always been my cup of tea and I'm not too sure that BB10 will give me that ability. Right now on WP the lack of customizability is really irking me. Sure, you get "live tiles" and "accent colours", but other than that it's just too simple and lacking customizability. What exactly would the BB10 equivalent be of rooting, or installing homebrew apps? I'm assuming that the community isn't as robust as it is with Android, but is there still a community that works with that kind of stuff? I tweaked the hell out of my Veer and webOS as a whole, and it's something that I deeply missed when I switched to WP. Anyone here familiar with hacking and tweaking BB10?

Anyways, that's about all I have to ask. Sorry for the extremely long post, I have a ton of questions and I know that you guys are the #1 BB experts on the internet, so I figured you guys would be the ones to talk to \

So should I keep the Z10? Will it satisfy my needs? Or, should I jump ship to Android?

Thanks in advance, hope to hear from you all soon,
-Evan

Imma answer your questions one by one as explicit as I can.

First of all, the Z10 has an amazing browser, it's blazing fast, has flash support and as you might know has the highest score on the HTML5 test in mobile browser. It's currently running flash 11.1.121.108 so no problems there. Bottom line, fast and reliable browser.

The multitasking is awesome too, you can have up to 8 opened apps at the same time, updating from time to time and they don't close unless you close them, I mean they stay opened and some of them auto update on the background (like the weather app or BBM for example) as for the downloads they don't cancel when you minimize the app, and when you're outside the browser an open a link, it opens on another tab leaving intact what you were doing. So you're covered there.

Cloud services work just fine with the native file manager, you can integrate box and Dropbox to it so u can share files to either of them directly, sharing to them and getting files from them too. If that doesn't work for you, then you have another alternative that is to get an app called playcloud that does all that plus u get ftp, sky drive, google drive and all those goodies.

You get adobe Reader and docs to go with the device, that work fine, you can read your pdfs and create word docs and excel files and view an edit ppt presentations.

Well in terms of communications the Z10 is a beast so no prob there.

The Z10 does have NFC but I'm not sure of any thing you ask in there, I know it's capable of mobile payments just never used it or any of the other things u ask related to NFC, never saw a useful function for it, so I barely activate it.

On the app topic, it's funny cuz the apps u don't need are available lol, but anyways, shazam isn't available unfortunately, but they claimed in BlackBerry live that Sound Hound is coming, has weather, awesome games (cut the rope included), dictionary flashlight metronome fitness tracker and all that stuff is available in the store so I don think u will hav much troubled there an di also believe that there is one app available for tracking of data usage, I'm not sure though.

Sideloaded apps work amazingly well on the Z10, at least some of them do, I Sideloaded a bunch of em and they work fine, no problems at all with that. Btw they claim that we will get the Jellybean runtime sometime later this year so we will be able to run the majority of apps in Google play.

Ur last topic is about rooting. I believe it's not possible but I could be wrong, guess someone else has to answer that for you.

Hope this helps


Posted with mah Z10!