[lindaandjon]

I've been reading so much about how bb10 is dead that I thought it was time I checked out some alternatives. So, as I wanted a 10" tablet as my eyes are struggling with 8" ones, I bought a Teclast X98 Pro Dual Boot Android 5 / Win 10 - 9.7" tablet. I know it's not a phone, but I felt it would give me a reasonable insight into how Android and Windows would work for me in place of my Z30.

I set up both systems how I wanted them fairly easily and started to play with them. I liked the apps on Android (but there's an awful lot of crap) and felt the apps on W10 were sometimes very good but often poor. I couldn't get Endomondo to run at all, my weather crashes occasionally as does Ebay and the way some apps crammed text into the centre of the screen and left huge borders either side really defeated the object of having a large tablet. I've really struggled with the keyboard on both systems and correcting spelling mistakes in W10 - click on the word try to move the cursor and in the end give up and just delete the word and retype it. Maybe that's just me, but I've missed the way bb10 does it big time. Apps on Android run well mainly but do crash occasionally. The tablet feels more sluggish on Android and extremely snappy on W10. The browser war was one by Edge and in the end I wasn't bothered about lack of apps as I just used the browser which I really really liked.

I'd set my Android screen up with widgets and my W10 with live tiles and by the end of the week had removed all the widgets and most of my live tiles. I found them distracting and they lured me into clicking on things I didn't need to and wasting time.

After two weeks, despite Androids great App selection I now just use W10. It's (for me) far quicker, more professional and quite slick. It's also really not finished. There are loads of areas that seem to not be working properly or sensibly. Spell correction as I mentioned, my wifi sometimes won't work and you need to reboot, you have to remember to tell the OS that a new wifi connection is metered rather than it prompting you for each new connection, my tablet is limited to 3 medium tiles across (portrait) when it could easily fit 5 and I don't see why MS doesn't let me have the number of tiles I want. I hate scrolling down all the time. Onedrive can't be loaded to a SD card - really MS? You think most people's tablet can load all their onedrive stuff to the internal drive? That drove me mad. No global inbox - even for just your emails? Very annoying.

But I can see it improving and improving with each new patch update etc. It feels like it has potential and is going somewhere, whereas Android felt slow, old and unreliable. (These are my thoughts only!) I did like the drag down notification tray on Android and it's customisation and of course all the apps.

But W10 has the desktop too - which is very useful for me and much easier to use on my tablet than 8.1 was on my old tablet. It seemed odd and quite impressive that MS could get a full blown windows to run more snappily than a tablet OS In Android.

But what about the Priv? Well it's a great phone, but I really don't want a PKB and I'm not sure I want Android much either and I'm really not keen on spending that much money on a phone. So a W10 Phone is it then? Err, not yet. My conclusion is that I like W10 on the tablet but having played around with both OS on the tablet (which I know aren't the same as the systems on a phone) I'm not in any hurry to say goodbye to my Z30 now, so, as you were, I'm staying put and will perhaps have another look at Android and W10 next year...

Posted via CB10

[bmercer94]

BlackBerry 10 should continue to work as an OS for a number of years, assuming APIs for apps don't change in the meantime. If you're using it for e-mail, sms, mms, calling, those should all continue to work for the forseeable future. Just because there is no new development will not stop the devices from being usable. I've still got my Playbook, have a few Android apps sideloaded(kindle and a few media players), and it works fine, same goes for my 9700. No development in years yet it works just as well as when i switched to BB10.

[Vistaus]

MS announced last week that global inbox will be coming back soon.

Posted via CB10

[elkadri]

Im thinking: if BB07 is still alive and working fine going into 2016, BB10 will live till at least liverpool wins the PL which is not before 2020.

[beowulf101]

I've just ordered a Jolla. As Sailfish 2.0 looks like they are pulling the UI into something very, very tight (and BB10 like!), and it's being updated monthly, and it's also chasing privacy and security, I'm going to give it a shot and finally put my Passport down for a while. It's almost half price on their website right now, so no time like the present to give an alternative OS a good look.

Posted via CB10

[lindaandjon]

Good news about the global inbox and I can see me one day moving to Windows phone, but not yet.

I've got a BlackBerry Torch too which we use daily. It works well for what we need it for and we're not planning on dumping that anytime soon as the contract it's on is a global data plan which can't be renewed or transferred.

I'm very content with my Z30 really after seeing a bit of the alternatives. I've played with my friends W10 and Android phones as well and they both have plus points but neither felt as intuitive or as easy to use or as productive as BB10.



Posted via CB10

[Me2]

I've just ordered a Jolla. As Sailfish 2.0 looks like they are pulling the UI into something very, very tight (and BB10 like!), and it's being updated monthly, and it's also chasing privacy and security, I'm going to give it a shot and finally put my Passport down for a while. It's almost half price on their website right now, so no time like the present to give an alternative OS a good look.

Posted via CB10

As long as you are aware that Jolla have stopped making phones and are concentrating on software, and the Jolla phone is well out of date and underpowered for even the current version of Sailfish. If you want to play with the OS may be better to put your money into more up to date hardware that will run a supported Sailfish port.

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