[brunoxrs]

I have an upgrade available soon, and I can't decide between the Passport, the Z30, and a Note 3. I've never been an Android user, but the large screen and plethora of apps intrigues me, however I'm currently a Q10 user and I've gotten so used to the efficiency of BB10 that I'm afraid I won't enjoy Android as much.

I mostly use email, BBM, WhatsApp, and web browsing, but if all the Play apps were available to me in a 16:9 form factor, I'm sure I would find new things to do on a phone.

They're all so different that I'm having a really hard time deciding which one would work best for me. I have no problems with large (or wide) phones, so I narrowed it down to these three.

Any suggestions from those who are familiar with both BB10 and Android on the Note?

Posted via CB10 on BB10 from Q10

[diegonei]

For what you propose to use the phones, all options are overkill. Either will do. Get the cheapest?

I'd go Passport myself, else, get the 5.7' thingie.

[vbdwork]

I mostly use email, BBM, WhatsApp, and web browsing, but if all the Play apps were available to me in a 16:9 form factor, I'm sure I would find new things to do on a phone.

If you want to have absolute control over your device and access to virtually unlimited native apps, then go with Android. You can make your device truly unique and yours, one of a kind. Customize every single pixel you see on your screen if you want... shapes, colors, fonts, keyboards... even change the entire OS, overclock the CPU, modify OS core settings with custom kernels... it all depends what you want from the device. Note 3 is a popular device with very good 3rd party support on XDA.

[brunoxrs]

If you want to have absolute control over your device and access to virtually unlimited native apps, then go with Android. You can make your device truly unique and yours, one of a kind. Customize every single pixel you see on your screen if you want... shapes, colors, fonts, keyboards... even change the entire OS, overclock the CPU, modify OS core settings with custom kernels... it all depends what you want from the device. Note 3 is a popular device with very good 3rd party support on XDA.

That's exactly why it's on my list. I definitely like the idea of custom ROMS and all the tinkering. I just don't want to be less efficient with my communications as a result. I'm basically hesitant to leave BB10.

Get me the HUB and the BlackBerry Keyboard on a Note...and it would be awesome.
I'll have to take a closer look at the Android OS.

Posted via CB10 on BB10 from Q10

[vbdwork]

Get me the HUB and the BlackBerry Keyboard on a Note...and it would be awesome.
I'll have to take a closer look at the Android OS.

It's all about habits. Once you get comfortable with Android, you'll be doing same things with the same efficiency, if not faster. Don't forget Note 3 is much faster hardware device than your current Q10. It's switching between emails, messaging, Facebook, etc. faster than you can make a gesture on your tiny Q10 screen. And try the apps with pen support, it's completely different experience.

[CharlieV]

I have a Note 3 and a Passport. I've never used a Z30.

First, you cannot run custom roms on a verizon or AT&T Note 3. The bootloader is locked. You can't even root them with any recent OS version. XDA has great stuff but 80 percent of it won't work on these models. Either get an old one that hasn't been updated or an international version.

When I got my Passport I was carrying both. Now, I carry the Passport only and use the Note 3 as a small tablet... even though I have a tablet. The note taking features of the Note 3 and the inifnity of apps are pretty great. It is zippy especially with the recent OS update to 5.X. Most significantly, the battery is swappable.

My use case is mobile pro user. For me, the GOTD setup of the Passport and the keyboard are killer features. Also, the Passport consistently has better reception, side by side, than the Note 3. It has a much better screen and when the keyboard is up on the Note 3 I have much more screen on the Passport. The only negative for me of the Passport is the non replaceable battery. Case offerings stink for the Passport, too. I have several.

The apps I use are pretty simple... call recording and logging, call blocking, then the built in email, messenger, texting and browser. I stopped carrying both devices when I figured out how to put Google play on my Passport. I haven't found anything, including Google specific apps, that I can't run on the Passport. Now, I keep the Note 3 charged but I rarely bother to take it anywhere.

The reason I bought a Passport was that I was sick of the embarrassing typos on my Note 3. Even with swiftkey it just stinks. I use my phone for business and the Note 3 never cut it.

Blackberry Blend is an amazing plus, too, and Androids don't have anything quite so good.

Best of luck.

Posted via CB 10 on my Passport SQW100-1 sporting 10.3.1.2582

[Ed YANG]

The only few thing I see positive with Samsung... is that the battery is removable, as well as exchangeable, larger landscape of the screen compare to what Z30 offers, as well as Android O.S. which is upgradable to which ever the latest...

Z30 update will not guarantee that we will get the latest.

Since TS had used Q10... stick to it, or get the Z30 which the O.S. you're at least much familiar in navigation...

[vbdwork]

Blackberry Blend is an amazing plus, too, and Androids don't have anything quite so good.

In my opinion Blend is a very basic software compared to AirDroid, for example. Blend could be more secure, but requires bulky software installation and Windows version needs update badly. AirDroid is desktop OS independent, fast and has more features.

Also, BB10 Android emulation won't run correctly Android apps with direct hardware access requirements. Try Tasker on your Passport and you'll see. It can't control your hardware devices through emulation. At least no such app works on Z10. I don't have Passport to test, but it's the same OS, same results are expected.

[CharlieV]

In my opinion Blend is a very basic software compared to AirDroid, for example. Blend could be more secure, but requires bulky software installation and Windows version needs update badly. AirDroid is desktop OS independent, fast and has more features.

Also, BB10 Android emulation won't run correctly Android apps with direct hardware access requirements. Try Tasker on your Passport and you'll see. It can't control your hardware devices through emulation. At least no such app works on Z10. I don't have Passport to test, but it's the same OS, same results are expected.

I haven't tried airdroid.

I have Tasker on my Passport but I agree it doesn't do everything it does on my Android... but when I lost root due to an upgrade and realized that I probably won't get root again, I gave up on Tasker.

BB profile changers are nothing like Tasker.

But that sort of highlights my reason for preferring the Passport. I spent hours and hours messing with Tasker and rooting and etc on my Android. Serious time wasting. The Passport just works and, for me, is much better at calls and messaging/emails and those are my priorities.

A single missed call can cost me thousands of dollars. A single client thinking I don't know how to spell or type, or peeks behind the curtain of my mobility veil, can cost me the same. My Android phones let me down numerous times in those respects. That's never happened with any of my several BlackBerry phones. I wouldn't DREAM of typing this post on my Android. If I did I would either make it very short ot I would have to proof read and change it numerous times.

I neglected to mention in MY first post that the Blackberry Assistant is far more accurate than Google Now and the Android voice keyboards /both Google and Nuance). It is also a little slower.

Posted via CB 10 on my Passport SQW100-1 sporting 10.3.1.2582

[vbdwork]

...I gave up on Tasker.

Tasker was just an example. Any other Android app with direct hardware access requirement won't work on BB10 OS. For apps that require Google Play Services you have to rely on 3rd party hacks, otherwise they won't work either. Even Google Play Store access is a hack on BB10, available Amazon App Store is a joke. BB10 offers limited Android compatibility only. Nothing Android is guaranteed to work, you have to try. And what works is always slower on Android Player emulation compared to similar hardware Android device.

I spent hours and hours messing with Tasker and rooting and etc on my Android. Serious time wasting. The Passport just works and, for me, is much better at calls and messaging/emails and those are my priorities.

You don't have to mess with the software, if you don't want to. All major brand mobile devices work well with original OS. How they handle communications, better or worse, is a personal opinion/preference only. The difference is with Android you have a choice. With BlackBerry you have only what's provided by BlackBerry, like it or not. No OS customizations, no 3rd party support (or extremely limited), no support for wearables, printers, scanners, etc. It's a hit and miss situation, too many workarounds, no much information available. Again, nothing is guaranteed to work, you have to try.

I neglected to mention in MY first post that the Blackberry Assistant is far more accurate than Google Now and the Android voice keyboards /both Google and Nuance). It is also a little slower.

In my experience BlackBerry Assistant doesn't even come close to Siri or Google Now in terms of functionality. In terms of speed it may be OK on Passport, but is very slow on other 2012 hardware BlackBerry devices. I have disabled all voice commands on my Z10, it's a waste of time. It's actually faster to find what I need doing a search in Browser. BB10 browser is very basic, but fast at least. Everything BlackBerry is very basic compared to that's available now in 2015, hardware (Passport as an exception, but not a device everyone wants) and software.

I wouldn't DREAM of typing this post on my Android. If I did I would either make it very short ot I would have to proof read and change it numerous times.

All you need to do is to find the right keyboard for you. At least 20 very good ones are available for Android. Smart Keyboard Pro is equal to BlackBerry keyboard accuracy (as an example), has much more features and supports more languages. Nothing comes close to hardware keyboard accuracy and experience, but very few people like or need hardware keyboards. If it was a global demand, at least 20% of the phones would have hardware keyboards. For most people hardware keyboard is just a waste of screen real estate. In some cases it's an inconvenience too. How you are going to type non-english letters on your Passport? Remember what key corresponds to the letter/symbol you want to reproduce? Or bring extra on-screen keyboard with special characters? Is it going to be faster? No.

[brunoxrs]

For my use, when I type in a second language, the predictive text in BB10 always shows me the proper spelling with correct accents anyways, so I don't even worry about that.

I don't write in languages that use other than the alphabet used in English/Western Europe.

The Note is a beast of a device. My brother-in-law and my sister each have one, and it's definitely a powerful Mobile device. I just have to find a place where I can try out a Passport live (and not just some dummy unit).

Posted via CB10 on BB10 from Q10

[CharlieV]

Tasker was just an example. Any other Android app with direct hardware access requirement won't work on BB10 OS. For apps that require Google Play Services you have to rely on 3rd party hacks, otherwise they won't work either. Even Google Play Store access is a hack on BB10, available Amazon App Store is a joke. BB10 offers limited Android compatibility only. Nothing Android is guaranteed to work, you have to try. And what works is always slower on Android Player emulation compared to similar hardware Android device.



You don't have to mess with the software, if you don't want to. All major brand mobile devices work well with original OS. How they handle communications, better or worse, is a personal opinion/preference only. The difference is with Android you have a choice. With BlackBerry you have only what's provided by BlackBerry, like it or not. No OS customizations, no 3rd party support (or extremely limited), no support for wearables, printers, scanners, etc. It's a hit and miss situation, too many workarounds, no much information available. Again, nothing is guaranteed to work, you have to try.



In my experience BlackBerry Assistant doesn't even come close to Siri or Google Now in terms of functionality. In terms of speed it may be OK on Passport, but is very slow on other 2012 hardware BlackBerry devices. I have disabled all voice commands on my Z10, it's a waste of time. It's actually faster to find what I need doing a search in Browser. BB10 browser is very basic, but fast at least. Everything BlackBerry is very basic compared to that's available now in 2015, hardware (Passport as an exception, but not a device everyone wants) and software.



All you need to do is to find the right keyboard for you. At least 20 very good ones are available for Android. Smart Keyboard Pro is equal to BlackBerry keyboard accuracy (as an example), has much more features and supports more languages. Nothing comes close to hardware keyboard accuracy and experience, but very few people like or need hardware keyboards. If it was a global demand, at least 20% of the phones would have hardware keyboards. For most people hardware keyboard is just a waste of screen real estate. In some cases it's an inconvenience too. How you are going to type non-english letters on your Passport? Remember what key corresponds to the letter/symbol you want to reproduce? Or bring extra on-screen keyboard with special characters? Is it going to be faster? No.

I have tried a number of screen keyboards--almost all of them, even the crazy ones--and I keep returning to Swiftkey then occasionally switch to Fleksy. I bought both but I am on the beta program for both now. I don't know... I can tell you that even after training myself to really hit the key location on my Blackberry I still get crazy results from Android keyboards, and correcting in Android is a pain in the ***. Also, I haven't found an Android keyboard with forward delete. What really irritates me is that when I make a mistake, Android picks a real word anyway (instead of underlining a mis-spelled word) and I miss those typos before I hit send. For a guy who has crazy friends and trained his keyboard and dictionary to cuss, this can be a real liability. Change one letter in can't and the apostrophe doesn't magically appear and you have heaped a big insult.

And I noticed a typo in my message that you responded to... ugh.

I think the bottom line is that I type on my phone ALOT because I am a mobile professional and I get a lot of email and other messages that require a response throughout the day. So even if the physical keyboard is only marginally better, as long as it is the best that is what I need. My only gripes with the Passport keyboard are that it really can't be used at all one handed, and the zero moves to different locations on the popup number keyboard.

When I took my new Passport to AT&T to get a smaller SIM no one there had ever seen one and I basically showed it off to a couple of customers and all of the sales staff. It was a little comical because I just wanted to go home and figure out how to use the phone, yet I ended up spending about ten minutes watching it be passed around by strangers with filthy hands. You know what that's like. Irritating. I had my Note 3 with me, too. One asked me if it bothered me that the screen was shorter than the Note 3 because I do, in fact, get larger phones specifically because of vision issues. This is the screen real estate argument... I opened the text message app on the Note and the keyboard popped up; having the keyboard up is the normal mode for me because I am normally typing something. In that configuration, side by side, there Is actually more screen in every dimension on the Passport than on the Note 3, and the screen is much more readable.

Again, this is sort of a long response and I wouldn't do it on my Android. I am doing it on my Passport.

I type on a computer a lot, too. People who do that generally demand that their computer keyboards have travel, give physical and audible feedback, are soft at the bottom of the press, are well spaced, etc. I'm not saying that I am a keyboard astronaut, but when you use one alot you gravitate to what works best.

Anyway, to each his own. If there was an Android phone that did all of the cool stuff and had a fold out, slide out, or magically appearing physical keyboard, my support of BlackBerry� would be really put to the test.

Posted via CB 10 on my Passport SQW100-1 sporting 10.3.1.2582

[bitek]

I have an upgrade available soon, and I can't decide between the Passport, the Z30, and a Note 3. I've never been an Android user, but the large screen and plethora of apps intrigues me, however I'm currently a Q10 user and I've gotten so used to the efficiency of BB10 that I'm afraid I won't enjoy Android as much.

I mostly use email, BBM, WhatsApp, and web browsing, but if all the Play apps were available to me in a 16:9 form factor, I'm sure I would find new things to do on a phone.

They're all so different that I'm having a really hard time deciding which one would work best for me. I have no problems with large (or wide) phones, so I narrowed it down to these three.

Any suggestions from those who are familiar with both BB10 and Android on the Note?

Posted via CB10 on BB10 from Q10

Passport . Z30 is great for the price and it's good battery life. But passport is a beast for BlackBerry phone of course

Posted via CB10

[vbdwork]

This is the screen real estate argument... I opened the text message app on the Note and the keyboard popped up; having the keyboard up is the normal mode for me because I am normally typing something. In that configuration, side by side, there Is actually more screen in every dimension on the Passport than on the Note 3, and the screen is much more readable.

Probably, but the keyboard doesn't stay open all the time on the Note and Android applications are optimized for 16:9 screen, not 1:1. Also, you can turn the Note on landscape view to read large spreadsheets, browse pictures or watch video. Media on 1:1 screen doesn't look good with the two black bars on bottom and top.

Anyway, to each his own.

Correct. You found the best device for you. Hopefully the OP will find his best device.

[brunoxrs]

I'm going to try to hit my carrier store to see a live Passport. Hopefully they have one.

I've narrowed it down to the Passport and the Note. Z30 is just not up to the same standard (specs wise) as the other two.

I have to see how I adapt to the different keyboard layout. I've played with the Note 3 various times, and as with any touch screen phone I've used, I'm not very accurate with the on-screen keyboard, although I'm sure that would improve with time and use, like anything in life.

Posted via CB10 on BB10 from Q10

[brunoxrs]

There's just something so darn satisfying about clicking those physical keys.

Posted via CB10 on BB10 from Q10

[brunoxrs]

Just went to my carrier store and spent about a half hour playing with the Passport, a Note 4, and an LG G3. I must say, while I know the Note is a superior machine from a specs perspective, the Passport actually felt faster doing everyday tasks; switching through apps etc.

Keeping in mind that they were all display units, and not as optimized as they could be from a settings perspective, I was really impressed with the Passport's performance in comparison to the other two.

Flicking up words from the keyboard is awesome. I could definitely see myself using that feature regularly. The Passport just felt quick, and fluid. I only regret not being able to try Android App performance as they didn't have the Amazon App Store up and running (and I certainly wasn't going to use my own account). But the limited interaction I had on the Amazon Store (itself an APK) left a positive impression, as I couldn't detect any lag at all.

The LG G3 was actually nicer than the Note (IMHO). It had a nicer UI than the Samsung, and had a pretty cool split screen mode, that worked quite well.

All things considered, the Passport just jumped to the top of my list.

Posted via CB10 on BB10 from Q10

[Pcmx]

I'm not saying that I am a keyboard astronaut,

I am a keyboard astronaut millionaire

Posted via CB10

[draftex]

Had a Z30 for 6 months, got tempted to buy Note3 but it was a short affair. Back to Z30 and am happier than before and wont trade it for any Android phone currently in the market. If can resist the temptation of buying a Classic or a future phone from BlackBerry I will stick to my Z30 for a long time.

Posted via CB10

[world traveler and former ceo]

Passport hands down!

Posted via CB10

[Jamchinlam]

If you want a physical keyboard, go for the Passport, if you want an all touch, go for Z30. If you want a laboratory, go for the Note.

I would go for Z30.

SihZou Z10

[cgallaer]

For what you do on your phone, I'd go with the Passport. If you want to branch out and get something that can handle your current needs and much, much more, then get the Note 3.

Blackberry Passport SQW 100-1, 10.3.0.908

[Eakle]

Price concern : Z30, con : no physical kb
Apps concern : Note3
More professional looking concern : Passport!


Posted via CB10

[Madhuchandran]

Passport for sure with many more OS updates on the anvil. This is not official though.

Posted via CB10