[sunjammer]

I'm at BlackBerry Experience right now in Vancouver, playing with some Dev Alpha B's and Z10 devices, and listening to some BlackBerry folks giving presentations about BB 10.

My first impressions.. I love it!

My initial take-aways so far...
* The Z10 devices here are Model# STL100-1 and OS Version 10.0.9.2372 .. I'm told these are not "final"
* The Remember (Memo) app is fantastic! You can Share/Remember from any core app (ie, browser, photos, etc), and "Attach" any kind of document to a memo, set due dates, etc.
* Making/Accepting phone calls is very cool (swipe down to accept, up to ignore). Very fancy animations and very intuitive
* The keyboard is fantastic! The word prediction is great, and in-text editing is similar to iOS 6 but feels better -- you get a bubble magnify glass which is very easy to move around for cursor placement
* The Maps app is pretty good. No-frills, doesn't seem to have any satellite views or bus/walking directions (only car-driving navigation and traffic data). Look up businesses, add to address book, call number, etc. I was told Google Maps for BB10 will be available at launch if you prefer that.
* The camera usability is nice, timeshift works very intuitively, and takes pretty good night-shots with not much grain at all.
* The Music app is pretty bare, but totally functional (I'll have to play with this a bit more)

[cjcampbell]

Nice. Thanks for sharing. The text editing feature is a great thing to hear about as I know both myself, and others, have wondered how acurate it would be without the track pad available.

[anon(2757538)]

Google Maps at launch seems a little far fetched to me.

Google ditched BlackBerry, why come back now? They aren't even supporting Windows Phone 8

[greatwiseone]

Where is this in Vancouver?

[kozmo68]

Wouldn't google maps work through the android player if ported over?

[mathking606]

Well if google maps is there I will be very happy. Suprised that the music app is not that amazing but I guess it is not final and I'm sure TAT has added in some great stuff.

[BergerKing]

That magnified bubble feature is very useful, the latest Galaxys do this, and I'm glad BB is doing something to make it easier without a trackpad.

[sunjammer]

Where is this in Vancouver?

Westin Bayshore, it looks to be open to anyone. You can register for a draw to get a free Z10, too.

[jagrlover]

Wouldn't google maps work through the android player if ported over?

Yes. I've seen it.

[darkehawke]

blackberry navigation supports directions for walking/public transport so it may come over to maps.

[BB12MX]

Thank you ... cant wait for mine!!!

[416to604]

any idea how long this is going for in vancouver?

[Edge of Night]

I'm 5 minutes away from the Bayshore so gave them a call. This is for sales associates only. ... But sales training/intro on track for the January 30 launch!

[just_luc]

The blackberry experience shows aren't supposed to start until Feb 4th.. and Vancouver is not supposed to be until Feb 13th...

"BlackBerry Experience Forum" starts February 4th in Toronto | MobileSyrup.com

[astraith]

Google Maps at launch seems a little far fetched to me.

Google ditched BlackBerry, why come back now? They aren't even supporting Windows Phone 8

They aren't supporting WP because of politics. Google and Microsoft are having a war at the customers expense, and due to that I switched email providers and decided to but a Z10 instead of a Nokia Lumia 920.

With that said, I agree Google Maps (an app made by Google) is far fetched. But maybe Google Maps via a browser? Maybe that is what he meant? BB10 is a Webkit browser so it should work in theory.

[just_luc]

.. BB10 is a Webkit browser so it should work in theory.

Google maps is unbearable using the playbook browser..

[Trini-34]

Awesome! I cannot wait to use the remember feature; sounds like a winner!!

Thank you for sharing!!

[BB10FTW213]

So the Z10 is official? or is this like a fake post?

[kevinnugent]

So the Z10 is official? or is this like a fake post?

I'd be astounded if it weren't about to be released in 6 days 17 hours. I think we're still seeing "pre release" versions that don't have all the nice bits and pieces in them though.

[sunjammer]

So the Z10 is official? or is this like a fake post?

There were no model#'s on the body. Only the model# I could find in the About screen.

[sunjammer]

The blackberry experience shows aren't supposed to start until Feb 4th.. and Vancouver is not supposed to be until Feb 13th....

This wasn't an official show for the public. It was aimed toward the sales crowd. But, it IS open for anyone to walk in and explore and ask questions.

[sunjammer]

A few more things I gleaned..

The Adobe Acrobat PDF viewer is basically the same as the PlayBook... view only. There are no annotations or any other features as found on other platforms.

The Music Player App opens showing thumbnails of album art. Touch the album, and you see a track listing/song length. Touch song, and it plays the song with all the usual pause/play/next/previous buttons and song playback slider. I didn't check if holding the Vol Up/Down changes tracks, but the Playbook does, so I would expect it to do the same. There is no cover-flow feature.

[greatwiseone]

This wasn't an official show for the public. It was aimed toward the sales crowd. But, it IS open for anyone to walk in and explore and ask questions.

Would have gone if I knew it was happening....

[416to604]

hey sunjammer any idea how much longer this blackberry experience is going on for? westin bayshore is a 15min walk from my building and i could trek over there on my lunch hour tomorrow but i dont want to waste my time if it isn't going to be there.

[SK122387]

I hate threads like this. More specifically, I hate that Los Angeles isn't Vancouver and there's absolutely nothing remotely like this for me to go to here. I also hate that T-Mobile hasn't given me a release date so I can plan to be there when the store opens. I'm just full of hate today