This posts purpose is to tell you my experience, a long time BlackBerry user (9320->9800->9900->Z10->Q10->Z30->Passport), in my first 48hrs with the BlackBerry Passport.
First off I would like to say I am a long time BlackBerry fan, before I even had an iPhone back in 2008, with the 3G, which I jailbroke, added multitasking and backgrounds, video camera, and some other neat features. This was all fine until I got bored and found a love for BlackBerry. This is where I transitioned over to BlackBerry and haven't looked back, other then experimenting with a SIII brifly between 9900 and Z10.
I am a student in college for Mechanical Engineering, who has very little time for keeping track of many things in the world right now, it's like a constant revolution of studying and testing, so a tight schedule is very key to succeed. I have two email accounts associated with my phone, which are a Gmail account for personal, and a Microsoft client for school. With these accounts I receive all notification for class updates, where I shortly after input it into a task/list in the Remember app. That along with my already created schedule for classes in my Calendar app work together to keep me on track and on schedule.
The keyboard is something that I'm still getting used to. It's sort of like riding a bike, but it's kind of a new bike, one which has no seat, a completely different geometry, high bottombracket steep headtube bike, so the whole riding experience is changed. That's the similar feeling I'm getting from it, it reminds me of using the 9900 almost, but with the new enhanced experience we come to love (BlackBerry 10). As for the touch capacitive keyboard, very much so impressed with the first shot at it, and only with the latest 10.3 build 1154. Scrolling pages, apps, pinpoint modifying text, panning pages and many more functionality really enrich the experience. It would be brilliant if they brought even more gestures by 10.3.1, then maybe some functionality in apps could be even more so intuitive and worthy for purpose. *Would love to be able to navigate the phone with the keys, ie. similar to what seen on Classic*.
The battery life has been pretty phenomenal, even from coming from a very decent Z30. Battery has been something that hasn't become an issues, except for the first 12hrs when it was just getting worked in and seller down. I used it decently minimally yesterday, there were a few things I did with it, played around, browsed, but today I really took it to the test. I have been trying all my best to test it through my heavy-usage days to try and see if I can replace some usage from my laptop. I've been using it for Excel, which needs work (Docs to Go), Browser, also the Bloomberg for BlackBerry, and various other apps, including android apps.
.stl format file viewer (android), this is a counterbore we 3D printed in class last year.
Battery since last charge, Crackberry is using a fair mount
As for the BlackBerry Blend app, it's actually the coolest and probably one of the most useful mobile phone tools I've seen released. I know it makes it very less mobile and more linked, but it's perfect for school, and I could only imagine office. It really keeps you more active and more efficient on the computer. I've only tested it on pc (Dell Latitude i7), so I couldn't tell you the how it is on a tab.
The File Management is still spectacular, and it definitely is as useful as its been, but the way I can move files from OneDrive to DrobBox to Media Card to OTG or even HD is amazing, and so damn buttery smooth. This is what makes it that you can utilize this phone for work so well and even play, moving music files around, videos, photos, etc. It's so effective I actually prefer to move the files on my phone because of time concern, if my laptop is in its bag put away, which it is in between every class.
The last thing I will go over is how much better the camera is, "for BlackBerry" is an understatement, but that being said, I can't quite be the judge of that, but this is my first picture taken with it, Saturday Afternoon. Which I just realized isn't on it any more, it got removed when I restored backup onto this. This is my second lol Panaramic, save as for full view
One more with out flash in low lighting of my Z30
So I am going to go off to on a limb here and say not too many people made it this far, but I created this all on the Passport and it has been an excellent experience. I was waiting for this phone since Windermere talk!
Excellent review. I appreciate that you did it in the style of "here's how it can be used to make one's life easier," not just "is it cool or not" (as most websites seem to be doing).
Thanks a lot for the positive feedback, glad people appreciated, I figured I'd talk directly about my experiences, regarding what I do and how I do it, to further support the functionality vs the productivity aspects
Thanks for taking the time to review and your thoughts especially showing how you've made use of it so far. I honestly had no thought of upgrading from my Q anytime soon but just for fun I'm thinking of giving the passport a spin just for fun. I went from my 9700 on launch day to the Q on launch day if that says much about me lol