[Toodeurep]

I hate to keep beating this dead horse but The Verge score just remind me too much of my art teacher when a perspective drawing I did was better than the teacher's pet.

Shading: 9 out of 10 because nobody gets a ten
Subject matter : 7 out of 10
Detail: 8 out of 10
Use of multiple points: 8 out of 10

Average score: 8

Wait, that is better than Brady so I'll give you a 6.9.

[Thunderbuck]

It's a controversial device. It's got a weird shape, it's too wide and it's got a... KEYBOARD?!?

Not every reviewer will "get" the Passport. Some won't even want to try. But there were good reviews. I loved the Engadget review that opened with the line "For the first time in ages, I'm intrigued by a BlackBerry device."

And David Pogue (who gave the Z10 a glowing review in the New York Times last year) did a great writeup for Yahoo.

I think the reviews on the Passport are polarized, much the way this community is. I think that controversy will help sell the phone.

[JottyT]

Went into the Telus store today and tested one out and wanted to see the sizing of the phone as pictures off the net can make it look bigger than normal.

Awesome findings though. Size is comparable to the Note or Samsung Galaxy. Keyboard works great, screen resolution is amazing!

I just have found that the press / media influences what the masses are lead to think. Blackberry, Iphone, Android, etc...these are all great phones...they don't build these phones to do a poor job. Regardless, I highly recommend anyone to go and see the phone for themselves. Very impressed.

Also, ask if they have the demo device to tinker around with. Fits perfectly in a regular sized pocket in a shirt and regular jeans. Great product!!!

[z10Jobe]

I think it looks great. In a Suzuki Hayabusa in your face kind of way.

Regardless, who really cares what it looks like. It's a phone. Function is more important. To anybody over 17 anyways.

[medic22003]

I'm not so sure tbh. What would benefit them most? Sure, the ability to read a mail without scanning backwards and forwards is practical, but far more practical is the ability to pick the damn thing up and just start using it. Some people don't want a phone with a high learning curve, and comments on people's intelligence won't change the fact that if it is too complicated, they will chose a simpler design and go elsewhere. Lets be honest, no one could say bb10 is straight forward, and this new keyboard only adds to the complications in use from what I can see of it.

I think people will want a phone they can pick up and use. I think they will probably want to watch media on it without unsightly black bars, and use apps from google's ecosystem. I don't think they want a phone that can't be used one handed, and I'm pretty sure no one wants a phone that is far too easy to drop. That's quite an indoctrination programme required there I'd say.

Lets just say i'm looking with hope and anticipation at the Classic release.

Well I'm just a lowly paramedic that just got a BlackBerry for the first time this year. Had nothing but android before that. It took me all of an hour to figure out how to get around on a z10. Didn't even have a Verizon rep that knew enough to show me anything. Bb10 is straightforward and easy to learn. Ate there features on the phone I haven't figured out? Yeah but it is because I don't use them. If I needed to I'd learn. Apps aren't that big a deal to me but between, amazon, snap and BlackBerry World I have all I need or want. The key board on the passport doesn't look too much harder to use than the touch one on my z30. Granted I haven't tried one and I could be wrong. Bottom line is, if you keep telling people it's hard to learn, they won't try it. If they put some time and effort into figuring it out they will see bb10 is awesome. I had to go back to a DROID last week due to breaking my BlackBerry and it was a lag filled torture session. Granted my DROID isn't a brand new high end one but it ain't that old either. Bb10 kicks it's ***. So it ain't as cut and dried as you think. People just need to give it a chance. Doesn't help when sale reps laugh at you so you will buy the phone that makes them more money instead of the BlackBerry.


Posted via CB10

[medic22003]

Amazon reviews are positive so far.

Posted via CB10

[JottyT]

I'm an R6 kinda guy, but will say it's pretty kickass.

Agreed, it's more or a business prof / phone for the older gen.

[JottyT]

Agreed. Not too hard to learn how to use a phone and figure it out. I've gone from a keyboard to touchscreen and am thinking of going back because it's convenient and a great system.

[dc9super80]

I didn't think any of the reviews were that bad.....

.....but I'm definitely building a gender-biased picture about future Passport users.

When pointing out to female friends (doctors and city types) how clever the sizing of the Passport is (eg every man's suit has a Passport sized pocket) - their response was..... our suits don't have pockets! And as all the female friends have much smaller hands than me, they were all very sceptical about whether they could easily hold the phone in one hand to make/receive calls (fair point).

I was gobsmacked when I realised that the Verge review was probably written by a man (Dan - I suppose it could be short for Danielle....)

Not every man wears a suit to work or has a job that requires one. So maybe it was written by a man that doesn't need to use a suit everyday.

[anon(5828343)]

It sounds to me that BB10 did a good job of preparing you so that transition to iOS went pretty smooth, no?

Perhaps -- I certainly did it in that order BBOS --> BB10 --> iOS so you could be right that my BBOS/BB10 experience prepared me for iOS. Sadly, BBOS didn't prepare me for BB10 and it didn't feel "natural" and barely even does today especially since I have gotten so much more comfortable with the iPhone keyboard. My Q10 is basically just my back-up now and if I use it more than an hour a week, it would be a pretty unusual week.

So, yes, to BB10, THANKS for preparing me for iOS.

[anon(5828343)]

Amazon reviews are positive so far.

I thought the same thing until I noticed that not a single one of the Amazon reviews came from a "Verified Purchase" (where Amazon actually confirms that the reviewer bought their phone from Amazon). Every single reviewer seems to have ordered their Passport and received it in less than 24 hours unless of course these individuals all purchased their Passports in-store and decided to write a review on Amazon.

[coyotejim]

I talked to a guy at a restaurant earlier this week. He had a Z10 covered with a case (and the "BlackBerry" brand covered at the base) on the counter while paying. I commented on the phone and he immediately grabbed it and said, "it's not a BlackBerry!" I responded that if it was not a BlackBerry, then why did it have BlackBerry World installed and showed him my Z30. He was embarrassed. He replied that it was for work only and his personal phone is an iPhone 6. Go figure!

The guy described here is not the target user. I had a Bold issued by my employer (until they took them back and gave us iPhone 4s's). The iPhone was the cool thing to have at the time but you couldn't as easily vpn in a terminal session and manage your servers with it like you could with the BB's keyboard. In the enterprise environment there are a certain percentage of people who have to carry a work-issued phone but don't really do any serious "work" on it and would rather have something great for games and media. And in the non-enterprise environment there is an even smaller percentage of people who want a phone they can do real work on but are frustrated by phones that seem great for games and videos but frustrating to use for more than that.

Well I'm one of those people who want a phone to do work. I have a work-issued 4s which is lame for doing anything productive. I don't care if the screen was bigger lengthwise and turning it on it's side for width you lose space to the virtual keyboard. I'm so glad this phone has come along because:

- I'm not interested in playing any of the 10,000 games in the google store.
- I don't care if wide-screen mode for video gives me a black band at the top and bottom, I was around when letterbox on your 4:3 tv was all you had.
- I don't need to be able to clip my phone to a virtual head gear set and see a virtual world.
- I don't care if other people laugh at my non-hip phone with old-style keyboard. I'm not 12 years old in junior high.

What I do want is something I can use to do what I mostly do - read/respond email, read/edit docs, browse the web, make phone calls - and doesn't bend in my pocket. And being able to use a terminal app to vpn to my Oracle servers would be nice, but since this would be my personal phone and not my work phone I probably won't get access to do that.

I think the Seeking Alpha article by Corey Sommers that was mentioned in a previous post had it right - even the bad reviews emphasize the strengths of the passport: long battery life, large screen size, excellent keyboard, durable/high build quality. Yeah, that's what I freakin' want, man, and if every review is telling me that's what it has - even the negative ones - I'm going to buy it. Thank you, Blackberry, for giving me something I can do real work on rather than a what essentially amounts to a high-tech gaming toy.

[southlander]

I've never used a blackberry so don't know what the UI is like. Can someone tell me more about this part of theverge's review?

"Recent apps show up in a grid on the homescreen, but they aren�t permanent and it�s never clear where the last app I used will land."

Does this mean app icons always shift around because that can get annoying. Does this also mean I can't position them wherever I want like on an iphone?

Basically on BlackBerry 10 your default view IS the task manager. Thus the multitasking is tops. The reviewer is a bit off in characterizing it as recent apps in my opinion. The apps are minimized. Still running.

[Dave Bourque]

I hate to keep beating this dead horse but The Verge score just remind me too much of my art teacher when a perspective drawing I did was better than the teacher's pet.

Shading: 9 out of 10 because nobody gets a ten
Subject matter : 7 out of 10
Detail: 8 out of 10
Use of multiple points: 8 out of 10

Average score: 8

Wait, that is better than Brady so I'll give you a 6.9.

This is too good lol.

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.3247

[wojt7]

Yes. I Agree. BB10 is so hard to learn. Home button is replaced by Swipe up gesture. That's it. Any chimpanzee would have coped with it within an hour. Millions of people find it too hard to grasp.

[anon8656116]

Amazon reviews are positive so far.

What do you expect? People who are interested in the Passport will probably like it. None of the reviewers criticised the hardware flaws or software bugs. It’s pretty much a decent product at this point, if you are not put off by its unusual size and the limitations of BlackBerry’s ecosystem.

Yes. I Agree. BB10 is so hard to learn. Home button is replaced by Swipe up gesture. That's it. Any chimpanzee would have coped with it within an hour. Millions of people find it too hard to grasp.

I think that may have something to do with human nature: applying previous experiences to new situations and relying on old habits. Almost every smartphone user has probably held or seen an iPhone now, just as every desktop user has used or seen Windows. Both iOS and Windows haven’t developed their primary structure, Windows always had the start menu, whereas iOS has the simple home screen–app paradigm. But when Windows 8 was released, it was heavily criticised because of the lack of the start menu (and I don’t mean users who liked it). It didn’t matter that this functionality was now incorporated into the start screen, the button just had to be there for the average user to understand what was going on. Same with iOS, if Apple would ever expand the home screen too much, it would confuse the lion’s share of its own users. That’s the price of becoming such a standard-setting product.

I think BlackBerry 10 is actually a very straightforward OS. The structure is almost as simple as iOS’s. There is a homescreen with three sections: the Hub on the left, the multitasking view in the middle and the springboard on the right. It’s a simple swipe to the left or right and there is a visual indicator at the bottom. You’ll know what’s going on and what’s there. On iOS, the Notification Centre is hidden (a swipe from the top, not intuitive) and the multitasking view is a double-click on the home button (also not intuitive). Yet still, people claim that it’s the more intuitive OS. Same when you’re within an app, the overall structure is still the same: tabs at the bottom, actions at the top. Yet many developers have reached a bottleneck and tried to get around that by putting in their own sidebars and navigation panes (Facebook is particularly bad). But it’s not a core part of the OS. Consequently, the OS has lost much of it’s simple flow, because Apple’s default models don’t cover the evolved needs of developers. BlackBerry on the other hand has recognised this development and built a side bar, an app menu (swipe from the top) as well as an overflow menu on the right for actions that don’t fit. This is applied consistently across native apps. As a result, the structure is easier to follow. I think iOS has simply been so engrained in people’s minds that anything else is just ‘too difficult’. It’s like the start button, people won’t know what to do once it’s not there.

[Ebuka Allison]

Not to mention that The Verge "adjusted" the score from 7.3 down to 6.2 because they didn't like that it scored higher.

"More times than not, the Verge score is based on the average of the subscores below. However, since this is a non-weighted average, we reserve the right to tweak the overall score if we feel it doesn't reflect our overall assessment and price of the product. Read more about how we test and rate products.''
Do you even read bro?

[tufcustomer]

Yeap. That pretty much sums it all up. The brand is definitely jaded by the media and other platforms users (mainly iOS).

I talked to a guy at a restaurant earlier this week. He had a Z10 covered with a case (and the "BlackBerry" brand covered at the base) on the counter while paying. I commented on the phone and he immediately grabbed it and said, "it's not a BlackBerry!" I responded that if it was not a BlackBerry, then why did it have BlackBerry World installed and showed him my Z30. He was embarrassed. He replied that it was for work only and his personal phone is an iPhone 6. Go figure!

Posted via CB10

LOL, insecure much.

Posted via CB10

[primusd]

Compared to what I was expecting... i.e. the usual "here's blackberry taking another step closer to its grave" bias, I was pretty impressed with the overall tone of the reviews I've seen.

Reviews like the Verge and WSJ + the widespread unavailability of the device in the US for people to try it themselves will continue to hurt BB in the US market. That said, even the moderately lukewarm Engadget review could play well... certainly no one could accuse them of any +'ve BB bias (on the contrary).

Ultimately, I think word of mouth is going to make or break this device outside the enterprise... people seeing it on the street and saying, 'what the hell is that?'. In fact I think this where BB is making a crucial mistake -- they should be doing everything they can to get early adopters out there with devices on the street - including discounts through stores and/or from them directly (e.g. maybe tied to an active BBID?).

[JottyT]

Compared to what I was expecting... i.e. the usual "here's blackberry taking another step closer to its grave" bias, I was pretty impressed with the overall tone of the reviews I've seen.

Reviews like the Verge and WSJ + the widespread unavailability of the device in the US for people to try it themselves will continue to hurt BB in the US market. That said, even the moderately lukewarm Engadget review could play well... certainly no one could accuse them of any +'ve BB bias (on the contrary).

Ultimately, I think word of mouth is going to make or break this device outside the enterprise... people seeing it on the street and saying, 'what the hell is that?'. In fact I think this where BB is making a crucial mistake -- they should be doing everything they can to get early adopters out there with devices on the street - including discounts through stores and/or from them directly (e.g. maybe tied to an active BBID?).

I would have to agree with you on word of mouth. My question (in general) is what dictates a great phone? Is it the reviews? Personal opinion? Stock Price? I think all phones being made, with a few exceptions, are decent products in which companies want to succeed and producing. Makes sense as they want to incurr a profit. I personally believe word of mouth drives the price of stock down and feeds fuel to the media who then in turn preaches to the masses. It's unfortunate because the Curve, Bold, Z10, etc are great products; however, I do think that Jon Chen has done a few things to influence the publics eye.

He's trimmed the fat with the company and has made the books look profitable. This is probably the first time in years that Blackberry is looking financially stable, has a leg to stand on, and with the anticipated success will slowly but surely instill confidence back in the market / media for the company to rebuild itself. I thought the previous CEO (Heins, I believe) played his part, but I think the layout going forward should be ideal. Blackberry's biggest field of users is in the US / CND government / healthcare fields. If they can maintain their contracts there and also provide personal phones to the masses, that's their plan of action. Once they see some more profit I'm hoping they will then do what most other phone companies do - provide customization, etc

[imcurved]

The screen is gorgeous and this beast will turn head. My iOS and Android coworkers were very impressed with how beautiful the presentation displayed on my Passport.

They are also impressed with scrolling up and down by swiping on the keyboard.

Using Z10, wanting Z30, eyeing Windermere

[Zidentia]

All but the verge have mentioned it

To understand they have bias look no further than today's article about the "torture" testing done at the secret labs at Apple. Obviously a fed article to combat bad press.

Posted via the Android CrackBerry App!

[Thunderbuck]

"More times than not, the Verge score is based on the average of the subscores below. However, since this is a non-weighted average, we reserve the right to tweak the overall score if we feel it doesn't reflect our overall assessment and price of the product. Read more about how we test and rate products.''
Do you even read bro?

So, what they're saying is "normally we just average the scores, but we reserve the right to override that when we feel like it."

[Ebuka Allison]

So, what they're saying is "normally we just average the scores, but we reserve the right to override that when we feel like it."

Because, as they have explained several times. While all those scores may be high on their own, the whole package may not be appealing. For example, a phone with high performance and high battery life which heats up if you jse it for a minute might score a 10 in those two areas and a 2 overall.

[BroncoVAL]

the guys from ZDNET.fr are obviously in love with the Passport, i think we have here the more enthusiastic review of the Passport and they will probably stay unbeaten for a very loooonnng time as they are so euphoric (sorry it is in french but it's so good to see enthusiasm about Blackberry)
BlackBerry Passport : le debrief en vid�o
I love what they say to conclude: "Blackberry isn't sheltered from a great general use product success !!!"