[adampageuk]

I started properly with Blackberry with a Pearl 8100. It was an interesting phone, having come from nokias and then htc tytn's, the rollerball was different, the always on internet great if limited, and the keypad unique. After a year of abuse, by boss upgraded his curve to a bold, so I got his hand me down, and again, loved the blackberry experience, until one day I left the phone on top of the car while getting my kids strapped in.

I got a 9800 the moment it was released in the uk, and after nearly 2 years with the phone, it dropped through a hole in my coat and into a fast flowing river. Stunned, it took me about a minute before I dived in after it, retrieving it from the metre deep water. It took 4 days to dry out and boot again, but ironically for a while worked better than it did before its drowning. Eventually though, the damage done was obvious, the official battery would last an hour or so before draining from pretty much full, and then would take 6 hours to recharge. Knowing the 9800 was on its last legs, I waited with baited breath, enjoying each snippet and rumour about the new os.

Overall, I was massively disappointed by the launch event. They didn't reveal anything that wasn't already known about the phone or the OS, and the CEO came across as unenthusiastic and amateur, and there were uncomfortable pauses where he was obviously hoping the audience would clap. I was unsure about whether I really wanted the new blackberry, but knew that the chance of my 9800 lasting until the q10 was released, or ideally until a bb10 slider was announced was minimal.

So, 7 days ago, I picked up my new Z10 (white) from the post office. Rather than upgrade my 9800, I started a new contract, because it was cheaper, and quicker than upgrading my existing Orange account, plus I got it through Phones4U and was one of the first 250 orders, so theres a 64gb Playbook on its way... However, my new contract is on Orange, and since they won't let you move a phone number from one account to another, I have to wait for them to send out a payg sim, then request a pac code to move my number to my new account. It does allow me to compare effectiveness of each device for a month.

Day 1 - Friday 1st:
The box for the Z10 is minimal, but smart, the best phone box i've seen recently is the HTC One. Boot up time was quick, but then again, i'm on a 9800 and try to avoid reboots where possible. Once booted up, the setup wanted my blackberry id, so I gave it my blackberry.orange.co.uk one and boom, first issue. The z10 tells me my id is not supported on bb10 and then just continues. I wasn't expecting this, and not too concerned carried on, but was slightly shocked to find no email accounts had been brought across. Putting it down to the id issue, I started adding them, Twitter first, then went to add my second twitter account and found bb10 doesn't support multiple twitter accounts...

I shrugged, and added Facebook, and had the usual problem with it, that despite entering my password right, it failed to accept it, so I had to reset my password - this has happened on every blackberry everytime i've added my facebook account.

Then came email, hotmail first which went on without a fuss, then I tried my blackberry.orange.co.uk, and again got the 'this email is not supported on bb10' error. I started looking online for this error, and given it was a new phone, finding anything specific was difficult, but eventually I tracked it down to BIS support was removed from BB10. This was a big shock for me, I remembered vague news bulletins about RIM moving to Exchange Activesync, but I never thought they'd remove the core functionality that made BB email so good and so quick... Reading up about it, I could redirect my blackberry.orange.co.uk to another email address for a year, and had to change my linked id email immediately. So I did.

Previously, my work exchange servers has forwarded all my email to googlemail, which has filtered it, then sent it on to my blackberry.orange.co.uk address, with that not an ooption, I decided to add my googlemail - added via 'add acount' it failed to connect to any servers, added via Advanced -> Gmail I got imap.gmail.com errors. Given I'm a googlemail rather than gmail address, I tried imap.googlemail.com, but no change. In the end that turned out to be the fact that I had 2 step authentication turned on. The moment I flicked that setting off, googlemail was added to my phone.

I was going to leave it at that, and after relaying my findings about the BIS issue, something that will affect some of our staff and some of our customers, I was told that our exchange server and firewall was already setup for the activesync. That email account went on without much fuss.

By this point, adding email addresses had taken about an hour and drained the 25% in the battery to about 10%. Not too concerned about battery life yet, I plugged it into my pc to let Link install, and to charge, while I got on with some work. 2 hours later, and just about to head out to a business lunch, I noticed that the phone had only charged back up to around 25%, and that a lot of my contacts hadn't transfered. I'd presumed that BB Protect would take care of that, but there didn't seem to be anything on the phone to force it to restore a backup. I tried plugging the 9800 into Link to do a device switch, but immediately after selecting the phone, Link would report a communication error. I tried it on a different pc with link, same issue. I reverted back to the official battery, same issue... I got round it by synching my 9800 via the desktop software to my outlook contact list, and then this synched to my z10 via activesync.

While doing the 9800 switches, I plugged the Z10 into the supplied usb charger, and in 30 minutes, by 12:30, it went from 25% charge to 75%. Obviously the phone needs a high amp source.

The business lunch was at a pub on the edge of the yorkshire dales, and coverage was minimal. My 9800 reported it had no signal, while the z10 had 1 bar, the first positive thing for the phone that day. An issue came up that required the browser, and I was quite surprised at how good it was, it handled complex pages well, the login submit feature worked well, and with 1 bar, it was as fast as the 9800 with a full signal.

Back at work, I copied some videos to the phone, sent some test emails and tweets, and installed some games. By 8pm the battery had drained back to 10%, so I left it overnight to charge.

My impression after day 1 was highly negative, the lack of BIS support, the battery life, the lack of notification options, the issues with transferring contacts, everything felt poor to me.

Day 2 - Saturday 2nd:
My saturdays normally involve an early start to get my kids up and out of the house for ballet, which is in a church with next to no cell coverage. This week however, my wife was doing that while I dragged my eldest around town to do some shopping and to an eye appointment. I spent about 2 hours in the morning updating apps from BB World (big issue here, it doesn't automatically inform you of updates), searching for apps like skype, trying out dice roller apps, tweeting, and linking contacts. Linking contacts is probably the most important task for a Z10 owner, otherwise your contacts list will be full of multi versions of the same person - a facebook account here, a twitter one here, a mobile here, an email there... I drained the battery to about 70% just doing this.

Out and about in town, I took some photos, played around with the editing software and tweeted the results while my son got his eyes checked. Another big issue here: tweeting a photo is no longer instant, it looks like the z10 uploads it, waits for confirmation, and then posts it to twitter, I ended up posting the same picture 3 times because I thought it had failed, when it was actually just taking 5 minutes each time... I noticed that twitter no longer auto updates, no longer offers an autocomplete of usernames (but does link to your contacts list), and won't let you report spam...

Back at home, I quickly put the now 30% battery on to charge for 30 minutes before I expected to do my part of the ballet run, but that got cancelled, allowing me to find some new games. We then went up to my parents, again, an area with little cell coverage, and again, the 9800 was reporting the coverage coming and going, while it remained pretty much a consistent 2 bars on the Z10, only dropping out occasionally.

I played a lot of Flycraft that evening, and the poor coverage as well, caused the battery to drain to 25%.

My impression after day 2 was still highly negative mainly due to the amount I use twitter, I was also still having difficulty getting the peek gesture to work consistently, sometimes it wouldn't trigger, sometimes it didn't peek and just went all the way to the hub.

Day 3 - Sunday 3rd:
Day 3 was basically spent trying to come up with a solution to my BIS email - by having both my googlemail and exchange accounts, I was getting all my important work emails twice, but I was also getting EVERY work email. I needed a way to have only my important work show up. I turned off the exchange emails from showing in the hub, but it still notified me on every one that arrived, and googlemail is slow to arrive at the phone. The solution was to get exchange to forward to googlemail as it already was, and to get googlemail to forward it onto a new outlook.com email address - pickup from outlook.com seems faster and more reliable than from hotmail. I then delete the googlemail account, and set the exchange account not to synch email - I can still send from it, but it doesn't receive from it.

Day 3 was also my first battery pull, due to some android apps not accepting input properly, and battery life definitely began to improve after it, though how much of that was down to turning off nfc, and location services as well is unclear.

Day 4 - Monday 4th:
My first full day at work with the z10... I took it off charge at 6am, and by lunch time, it was at about 75% whereas the 9800 was about 85%. Given the Z10 is massively more powerful I don't think thats too bad. I gave the phone part of the z10 its first proper test, and the quality of it is brilliant. By the time I put the phone onto charge at 10pm, so a 16 hour day, it was down to about 35%.

My impression by the end of day 4 was certainly moving towards the positive. I'd tried doing equal amounts on the z10 as the 9800, and found myself trying to do the peek gesture on the 9800, and found the smaller and lower res screen hard to use.

Day 5 - Tuesday 5th:
I did quite a bit of browsing and emailing with the Z10 on day 5, and I have to say, the swiping up is excellent, and the touch keyboard itself is brilliant. It really does learn what you type frequently, and does read your emails for words and context. I was off out on Tuesday night, to go play an rpg with friends. Off the chargers around 6:30, it was down to about 50% by 6pm. I gave it a quick 30 minutes on charge, and went out. Mid game, the ability to type quickly and accurately one handed and to quickly peek at twitter responses is brilliant.

By day 5, I was pretty much sold on the Z10, its a wonderful phone. BB10, still has some issue's, but at the BB Jam keynote, it did sound like they were aware of its issues and working to fix them.

Day 6 - Wednesday 6th:
Another average day at work, the big issue I had on day 6 was with Facebook. The 9800 app had finally become good, able to do groups, events etc, so it was a shock to find the bb10 app was no better than RIM's first offering on the 9800, and lacked most of the features from the last year. I did another battery pull, and I found the phones lifespan had increased, 75% remaining by about 3pm now.

Day 7 - Thursday 7th:
I started this... again, another average day at work. I've pretty much stopped using the 9800 other than facebook, reporting spam on twitter/mentioning people not in my contacts, and Natwest app.

I also decided to test a theory - I charged it when I got home, and took it off charge around 9pm... 16 hours later, at 1pm on friday, its still got 50% battery and it's seen fairly heavy usage. A couple of battery pulls, and long overnight charges seems to have conditioned the battery really well.

So, after a week, my thoughts:

Z10:
It is a brilliant phone, fast, responsive, easy to hold for two handed or one handed use. The sound quality is brilliant and unlike many of the reviews, mine sounds fine cranked up to full volume and its certainly louder than my 9800. The screen is gorgeously coloured and easy to look at - i'm partially sighted so the clarity is a major thing for me - though it attracts finger smudges like nothing else - I invested in a screen protector just to avoid the smudges, but it probably took 15 minutes of hard cleaning before I dare to put that on. Battery life is surprisingly good for a high spec smartphone, I have no doubts that it would last 24 hours or more with average use. Its other fault would be the speed of rotation, which sometimes takes a while to pick up.
The camera is decent, the 2mp front camera certainly takes better photos than the 9800's 5mp.

BB10:
BB10 is in my opinion an unfinished and basic operating system with some very good features.
The lock screen is fun to play with, but it did take me a while to figure out I had to hold my finger on the camera. There needs to be integration with the weather app, and most importantly, there needs to be a way to slide to go straight into the hub.
The hub is great, but has some major flaws, like if you receive a new message while working with an existing one, peek shows you the current one.
Peek is brilliant, though it is fairly particularly about where the move starts, and ends and the curve you must get on it.
The browser is fine, and I've had 19 tabs open in it without the os stuttering to a halt. Its zooming could be better, I think the 9800 found and reflowed text more reliably.
Media options are definitely worse than in the 9800, compilation albums are badly handled for example, and getting to more tracks or albums by the same artist, a simple click on the 9800 seems to have disappeared in bb10.
Twitter is currently very flawed, with no multiple account support, poor media support, no auto completion of usernames, no spam reporting, and the hub shows direct messages twice. I tried replacing it with Neatly, but that was �2 wasted on rubbish that didn't integrate with the hub.
The camera software is basic, time shift is cool, but is a separate mode lacks zoom and (quite obviously) lacks flash support.
The notifications is something you'll hear most people complain about, with 2 separate emails, twitter, text, bbm, facebook etc, I want the ability to specify a default tone, volume, vibration and led colour for each account. I honestly can't believe that BB10 got to this stage without RIM being told that this was a dealbreaker.

All in all, I love the Z10 and can cope with the BB10 operating system, and i'm sure that it will continue to improve.

[dbmalloy]

Thanks for taking the time to give us your experiences with BB10.....

[renate49]

Again thank you very much. Much better than listening to someone whine and bash. Also very informative.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9350 using Tapatalk

[adampageuk]

Like I say, the Z10 is a cracking piece of kit, and i'm glad i've got it. BB10 is very usable, its just not as complete as BB6 or 7 was, but they had 10+ years of refinement, while bb10 is 8 days old... I'm presuming there will be an os update before the launch of the q10 that enables background apps and the like, and I'm hoping RIM are listneing to the feedback on forums like this and will work to improve the other areas.

[InvalidUser0510]

It's so bizarre reading these posts from former BlackBerry users. I owned a Nexus 4, not an older BB, before moving to the Z10, and to me, the experience has been amazing. I didn't have a single one of the issues that you've had, mainly because you seem to be a professional user and I'm a regular consumer. Interesting read.

P.s the Twitter app is made by Twitter, not blackberry, so it isn't their fault that it's not full featured. Knowing twitter, they omitted certain features to be able to launch it on time and will add them back soon. As for 2 step authentication on gmail/googlemail, you didn't have to disable that. You just have to go to your account settings and create an "Application specific Password" which you can put in the password field of any apps that you can't enter your normal password+pin in.

[adampageuk]

Not sure I'd consider myself a professional user, 100 emails received a day, probably 5 to 10 sent a day, no more than 30 minutes calls a day. I do however work with clients ranging from Sydney to Hawaii, so i'm always on call, and having a device that I can respond to instantly and accurately at 3am when I've been jarred awake has always been a major thing for me.

I'd presumed that RIM did the twitter app on BB10 like they did on the earlier os. That might explain something then. I'm guessing Facebook is probably the same.

As for the 2 step, its not that much of a loss, i've had major issues with the application specific passwords feature for synching bookmarks and remote desktop access in chrome, so its better for me that its turned off now.

[Novaone]

Thanks OP, great break down. And interesting read too.

It's so bizarre reading these posts from former BlackBerry users. I owned a Nexus 4, not an older BB, before moving to the Z10, and to me, the experience has been amazing. I didn't have a single one of the issues that you've had, mainly because you seem to be a professional user and I'm a regular consumer. Interesting read.

Yeah man, its true, many of us remained Blackberry users because of OS [5,6] 7.1 refined feature set. It was really good at what it did.

So we are also going to be the most critical of it, I guess haha. We sort of expected everything in BB7.1 + advancements of BB10. But my expectations were tempered. I will always love my 9320 though.

[Anonymous23400]

Thanks OP, great break down. And interesting read too.



Yeah man, its true, many of us remained Blackberry users because of OS [5,6] 7.1 refined feature set. It was really good at what it did.

So we are also going to be the most critical of it, I guess haha. We sort of expected everything in BB7.1 + advancements of BB10. But my expectations were tempered. I will always love my 9320 though.

I think it is very hard to beat the 9900. I liked the Z10 but love the 9900. Im sure BB10 will improve dramatically with a few updates and at that point I will look into getting it again. (possibly the Q10) Nothing beats the physical keyboard/touch screen phones. I will however always miss the track pad.... I hope a future phone release includes the track pad and BIS(please BB!)

[djmm2]

Excellent product review. Thanks for being frank. I don't have the Z10 yet, and I am looking for objective reviews like this one to help me decide. I have been using my wonderful 9800 for 2 years, its time to upgrade. Again, thank you.

[FBA]

I agree with the OP...it's is NOT ready for prime time. Many of the (productivity) features that took RIM years to perfect, are gone now. even things like automatic engage of Bedside mode, are gone. It is now totally useless and there are many other OS bugs as well as features that just aren't there anymore. Big step down from 7.1 in many respects, but I have no doubt that they will have fixed many of these issues by the time OS12 is ready to roll out! Some of the issues/bugs in this OS are quite major too...

I have a moronic keyboard issue that has become a problem on the 1st and 2nd Z10 I got...and it is quite frustrating...to the point where I want to take the phone and smash it against the wall into 1000 pieces. I think my phone will go back to the store on the 14th day, until they manage to address a lot of the dumb OS issues.

[Whitecaps]

Great looooong review

[InvalidUser0510]

I agree with the OP...it's is NOT ready for prime time. Many of the (productivity) features that took RIM years to perfect, are gone now. even things like automatic engage of Bedside mode, are gone. It is now totally useless and there are many other OS bugs as well as features that just aren't there anymore. Big step down from 7.1 in many respects, but I have no doubt that they will have fixed many of these issues by the time OS12 is ready to roll out! Some of the issues/bugs in this OS are quite major too...

I have a moronic keyboard issue that has become a problem on the 1st and 2nd Z10 I got...and it is quite frustrating...to the point where I want to take the phone and smash it against the wall into 1000 pieces. I think my phone will go back to the store on the 14th day, until they manage to address a lot of the dumb OS issues.

Uhhh...it most definitely IS ready for prime time. Maybe not for you, I don't know?

What "major" bugs are there? i've been using the Z10 non stop without a single restart since I got it. The settings menu shows that the last restart was 4:50pm on February 5th. No bugs for me...

What's the keyboard issue? You're being really nonspecific. They keyboard has been nothing short of magic for me. Funny, even the most critical reviewers of the phone have praised the keyboard. Maybe you should just get a physical keyboard phone since touch screen clearly isn't for you.

P.S. By those standards, no smartphone on the market is "ready for prime time" according to you.

[Rickroller]

I have a moronic keyboard issue that has become a problem on the 1st and 2nd Z10 I got...and it is quite frustrating...to the point where I want to take the phone and smash it against the wall into 1000 pieces. I think my phone will go back to the store on the 14th day, until they manage to address a lot of the dumb OS issues.

Just curious as to what the keyboard issue is?

[Rickroller]

Uhhh...it most definitely IS ready for prime time. Maybe not for you, I don't know?

What "major" bugs are there? i've been using the Z10 non stop without a single restart since I got it. The settings menu shows that the last restart was 4:50pm on February 5th. No bugs for me...

What's the keyboard issue? You're being really nonspecific. They keyboard has been nothing short of magic for me. Funny, even the most critical reviewers of the phone have praised the keyboard. Maybe you should just get a physical keyboard phone since touch screen clearly isn't for you.

P.S. By those standards, no smartphone on the market is "ready for prime time" according to you.

Just because someone is having issues, doesn't mean you need to go and start bashing them. Every thread you comment that isn't down on the knees praising the Z10, you get defensive. If the phone works great for you, awesome, but there is NO denying there are some issues, and people have every right to comment about them, despite whether you want to hear it or not.

[InvalidUser0510]

Just because someone is having issues, doesn't mean you need to go and start bashing them. Every thread you comment that isn't down on the knees praising the Z10, you get defensive. If the phone works great for you, awesome, but there is NO denying there are some issues, and people have every right to comment about them, despite whether you want to hear it or not.

Ironic, isn't it? You're "basing" me for complaining about his *nonspecific* complaints. Throwing one liners like "keyboard sux!!!one11" doesn't help anyone. Had he stated his specific issue with the keyboard, I would've been more than willing to help him resolve it.

[Rickroller]

Ironic, isn't it? You're "basing" me for complaining about his *nonspecific* complaints. Throwing one liners like "keyboard sux!!!one11" doesn't help anyone. Had he stated his specific issue with the keyboard, I would've been more than willing to help him resolve it.

I agree it was a non-specific keyboard issue, however, still no need to jump down his throat, as i've seen you doing in numerous threads already with anyone who is posting problems.

[quattro.pilot]

Thanks to the OP for the great run-through! I think you've commented on just about all the known/major issues that this initial release has.

My two biggest ****-offs (for lack of a better term) is the absolute difficulty in transferring contacts (none of the workarounds solved it for me...i've got 2 people sync'd over so far lol), AND the absolutely dismal notifications "functionality". Why are there less than a dozen alert tones to choose from????? I really depend on the colour of the flashing LED, the sound of the alert, and the repetition of an alert...and this OS has none of that. Very surprising to me seeing as it was a native part of 7.0 I'm also a bit annoyed that some of the "home screen" interactivity is gone (i'm coming from OS5 on a Storm1, yay me lol), specifically the quick access to Tone selection (phone calls only, normal, vibrate only, etc) and managing the connections by clicking on the reception signal icon (in order to quickly turn on airplane mode). To access both of these features requires quite a few steps, beyond leaving the window open all the time. Again a feature I was positive had great value and would be carried through any system migration. It's funny, with 10 it's kinda like I'm back on my old vr4 Storm where you needed 3rd party apps in order to perform the most basic functions.

And I agree with the person who commented that it WOULDN'T be ready for prime-time. Us Canadians & Brits truly are the Beta testers, because it will be all these "little" issues that sink the device when it goes into the US market. Just the contacts transferring issue alone has likely already tarnished people's impression a bit. Blackberry is on the edge of a cliff right now, everybody is watching and it will be the mundane and "insignificant" quirk that pushes it over that edge. They -BB- can't keep relying on devout users who will put up with their shortcomings and hack operating systems to create workarounds because quite obviously those people are the great minority.

I SERIOUSLY hope people from Blackberry are scouring the forums and honestly take to heart all the complaints, issues, suggestions, and observations and work around the clock to make it right. I think we at least deserve that.....

I can see the absolute potential in this device, I think it could certainly be a hit, but it's the little things that will kill it.

[adampageuk]

Some more battery observations:
Day 8 - my experiment day - I got the 'battery at 20%' warning after 25 hours and after some quite heavy use.
Day 9: Another ballet day, lack of signal seems to course serious drain because I was at 40% remaining after 5 hours off charger, charged in afternoon
Day 10: forgot to charge overnight, only light use, 20% warning after 27 hours

[sleepngbear]

Cool stuff. I gotta say, I REALLY appreciate your waiting to get a full week's impressions rather than just jumping on your first negative experiences. Glad to hear it's working out for you now, especially coming from traditional QWERTY BB's. Thanks!

[adampageuk]

The adaptive keyboard truly is what it says. To begin with, I was finding I was having to type 4 or 5 characters before words I used commonly were coming up. I've just had a bbm conversation with my wife, and I only had to type more than 1 character for a word once. On the flipside, the keypad is that accurate that I can type two thumbed on it at a similar speed to the 9800's.

Downsides to the keypad so far:
I've had about 3 instances where it just randomly disappears mid typing.
Since putting a screen protector on, swiping up doesn't work for about 1 in 20 swipes
There doesn't seem to be a way to set what the $ on the first swipe down acts as, obviously i'd prefer it to be a �
I wish it had shortcuts to .com and .co.uk

[adampageuk]

After 10 and a bit days with the Z10, I have to say, I love the phone, and BB10 is definitely growing on me, with the obvious faults listed above. I've finding that when i'm on any other touchscreen device - windows 8, kindle paperwhite, 9800, I'm doing the swipe up gesture to get to home screens, which obviously doesn't do anything.

[grunt0300]

@adampageuk Very informative read. No fanboyism here, just a man giving good quality reporting about a product that is in transition. I would genuinely like to read his reports, when the Q10 is released.

[belfastdispatcher]

"The browser is fine, and I've had 19 tabs open in it without the os stuttering to a halt. Its zooming could be better, I think the 9800 found and reflowed text more reliably."

Don't forget the Z10 has an awesome reader mode with the ability to easily increase or decrease the font. Try it out.

[pkcable]

BB10 is a love/hate for me too!!!! It's funny, right now I am running 2 phones, I have a Win8 phone on my main line on Verizon, but I have a Dev Alpha with BB10 software (the leak) on a T-Mobile line. I find that while Win8 is more polished and less buggy, that I really much prefer the way BB10 works. It flows much better and I MUCH prefer the way it works, it just has issues, like the OP and some others in this thread have outlined! BUT issues aside I do love the OS and can't wait till I get my actual Verizon Z10 and BB puts out OS 10.1!!!!! LOL


PS Rick and Invalid, need I say it.

[Alain_A]

transferring contact..all my contact always been in hotmail so I never had problem when i set it up