[xtremesniper]

I finally got my hands on a working Priv at a store today and here are my initial impressions:

• The screen is beautiful. It was on max brightness and it while it wasn't blindingly bright, it was also a fairly bright store so... It seemed bright enough.
• It does get fairly warm with just general usage. I was just fiddling with it going in and out of apps (no email accounts or google account was logged in) and it was getting noticably warm. The security unit on the back got in the way of determining just how warm it was getting.
• The camera app is not bad. It took reasonable photos and the video looked smooth. I missed the dedicated video button that they recently added on BB10, so hopefully they add that back since navigating the menus can be a bit cumbersome. Also, I took a panorama and it never showed up in the photos. Not sure what that's about.
• I noticed that the demo model had no animations. None. Rotation, switching apps, opening folders, etc were all done with zero transitional animations. I found that someone had gone into the Developer Settings and actually turned all the animations off one by one. Why would anyone do that? I re-enabled it obviously.
• Coming from BB10, I found it really annoying to have to use the back button to navigate anywhere. I'm so used to just swiping to the right to go back since it's a one-handed friendly gesture. I'm sure it's just something to get used to but seriously Android is not designed for flow or even one-handed use.
• The slider mechanism seemed fairly solid, but I have to say it felt different than I was expecting. The slide felt like it had some friction, and while opening it was easy, closing it took more effort. Maybe it's a worn out demo model but if that's the end result of heavy use then that's a bit odd... I found it easier to just close it shut by pushing down from the top of the screen rather than what people do in videos (pull it down from the metal edge with a nail).
• The keyboard. Takes some getting used to, and I'm sure I could get pretty proficient with it, but whenever I switched back to the virtual keyboard I was just so much faster and more accurate. I like the idea of the keyboard as a trackpad, but in the browser on a Wikipedia page it scrolls so unreasonably fast it's impossible to use. I kept making ridiculous typos on the keyboard because I'd hit 2 or 3 letters at the same time, but my hands are fairly small for a guy so I can relate to the "cramped" comments others have been making.
• In terms of build quality, I couldn't test the back (security unit) but I did try pushing on the edges of the screen both when the slider was open and closed. While open, it's solid. No give at all. While closed, it felt solid except the bottom right corner. It takes some effort but it does give a bit when pushed. I wouldn't be concerned about that though because with normal touch screen use you'd never press that hard.

Overall, it felt like a fairly solid phone. Would I buy one? I don't really see many reasons not to. I'm holding onto my Z30 for now because it does what I want a phone to do, and it does it well. But eventually I will need an upgrade and the Priv will be a contender.

I also tried the Nexus 6P and while I wouldn't want that phone (it's seriously ridiculously huge) I did notice that the UI animations and overall snappiness was ridiculously fast. It just felt faster and snappier than the Priv. Note: The Priv had some pending system updates that had not been installed which could have improved performance. It's just an observation I made, but the 6P was in another store so I couldn't try them out side-by-side. I also didn't spend nearly as much time with it as I did with the Priv.

My main beef with the demo model? No real way to test the Hub or any of the BB apps. Since this is "Just Another Android Phone�" the Hub is one of the reasons why someone would even buy this thing in the first place, but everything on it was just simply disabled. You can't text, you can't email, nothing was set up for demo purposes at all. I don't want to add my own data to the demo device so I'd expect some dummy data to be pre-loaded so I can play around with it. I guess they're only selling the phone as a "hardware keyboard phone" without really promoting any of the BB-specific software additions properly. It really makes me wonder if walk-in sales are doing well.

Since my Z30 is still doing great, I'm going to ride it out a bit longer. But I'm on these forums every day because I know that I really want the Priv to play with. I'm hoping in the new year the price might come down a bit and both the hardware and software issues will be ironed out. Until then, I might have to keep visiting the demo model to tide me over.

[xtremesniper]

One thing to note though... In this particular store (Bell) the Priv was stored way at the back in the corner with the other BB phones. All the other Android phones were up near the front. Kind of telling of what Bell thinks of it.

[qwerty4ever]

I find maximum brightness of the BlackBerry Priv screen to be blinding. I have the brightness at about 40% which is about as bright as much eyes can take without a headache. Impressed with this smartphone and the way BlackBerry has developed BlackBerry Android from the base Google Android. Honestly BlackBerry should have made this transition in 2012.

BlackBerry Priv with CrackBerry App for Android

[xtremesniper]

I find maximum brightness of the BlackBerry Priv screen to be blinding. I have the brightness at about 40% which is about as bright as much eyes can take without a headache. Impressed with this smartphone and the way BlackBerry has developed BlackBerry Android from the base Google Android. Honestly BlackBerry should have made this transition in 2012.

BlackBerry Priv with CrackBerry App for Android

It's funny because some early reviewers complained that it was not a bright screen, comparing it as "dim" compared to other flagship Android devices... And then Android Authority comes around and basically says it's the brightest screen out of all of them (minus Z5): Best of Android 2015: Display - Android Authority

I had no complaints about the brightness in the store, so I doubt I'd have complaints anywhere else.

[tmoore3496]

It's funny because some early reviewers complained that it was not a bright screen, comparing it as "dim" compared to other flagship Android devices... And then Android Authority comes around and basically says it's the brightest screen out of all of them (minus Z5): Best of Android 2015: Display - Android Authority

I had no complaints about the brightness in the store, so I doubt I'd have complaints anywhere else.

The probably had it on auto brightness, lol

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[xtremesniper]

The probably had it on auto brightness, lol

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

Probably. It was also an early review so maybe a software update changed something.

As a side-note, I realized I forgot to talk about the speakers!

The speakers on the Priv demo model were interesting... I'm not a big fan of being "that guy" that plays obnoxious music in public places for longer than 5 seconds, especially in a busy store. But I brought up YouTube and loaded up a song that is not my taste but I knew it was everyone else's (Hotline Bling, lol).

I cranked the volume to max and tried to get a sense of what using it would be like in a moderately noisy environment. I'll be honest (and I'd welcome other people's feedback here). It sounded a bit distorted and/or crackly at some points. But I have to give it the benefit of the doubt because it wasn't an ideal testing environment or even an ideal testing source. The volume itself was reasonable, but it felt like my Z30 would blow it out of the water in every way.

[xtremesniper]

Went back to the mall today and checked out the Priv at Telus.

Wow, what a disaster. Their demo model setup is so bad, it hurts my brain.

The phone is clamped down with these hooks that sit on top of the screen. It allows for the slider action but it's tight enough where the spring-loaded mechanism does not work and it forces you to force the slide all the way through. Not only that, but somehow the phone itself is not being aware of the slider being open, so keyboard gestures do not work and the virtual keyboard does not disappear. Could be related to the clamps on the screen? Not sure.

Another side-effect was not being able to hold down the home button to access Google Now or the Hub. Holding it down does nothing at all.

I rebooted the phone, same problems. I'm extremely disappointed that BlackBerry and Telus have set up this demo model this way. No one is buying this phone after trying this demo model, that's for sure. I'm pretty sure the issues were all relating to the clamps holding the screen down.

A quick walk to the Bell store and their Priv was un-restricted minus a security unit on the back. All was working fine and this was a much better representation of the phone as a whole.