[agp101]

Ciao........

[andrei_avram]

For background music playing you could always use the StereoTube app http://forums.crackberry.com/app-ann...p4-etc-786893/ the background playing is available whether you listen to a YouTube video, mp3, mp4 etc.
You can listen to YouTube videos while online, and also add to the playlist your offline music. The YouTube videos will be automatically skipped when no internet connection.

[NaijaBerry]

No problem with music playing when the phone is locked, I had my cuz over yesterday with his Z10 and played some songs from his phone (nice speakers by the way) and he's a phone lockaholic, I repeatedly unlocked his phone to change in between songs and one of the songs was like almost 10 minutes long his phone locks every minute and the music never stopped once. You probably have a faulty battery like people have been saying, some hardware do have factory defects at times, it happens.

[sooman54]

Well here's a new one.

My Z10 is now hopping back and forth between full bars of 3G and "Emergency Calls Only".

There is no need to EVER do a battery pull on the Z10 as some on here have advised. Simply hold the power button down for 10 seconds and that accomplishes the same thing.

I suspect a defective phone, but I would reload the OS first.

Also, if you delete any carrier bloatware, it will bug you to upgrade the OS, which only actually reinstalls the deleted bloatware. To avoid this, just hide the bloatware in a folder on the last page to 'get rid of it'.

[Lyls]

I just wanted to comment that it is really nice to read through a thread and not have to read a single negative comment! This is the way CB is meant to be! Maybe if members would simply ignore negative posts rather than feeding into them, we would see them die down.

With that said, I agree with the poster that recommend re-loading the os first & if you still have battery issues, exchange the phone. You won't need the box or receipt to do that. Just make sure you back up & exchange it out. I haven't heard of any Z10 owners having that massive of a battery issue.

Good luck & thanks for the honest Z10 feedback!

[BB_Junky]

Once I did the recent software upgrade I found I had to do a security wipe and restored the phone after and my battery life has been awesome since. To bad it didn't fill your needs as it is really an awesome device!


Sent from my super secret shoe device using Tapatalk HD

[Snap51]

If I were to go into an AT&T store would they provide me with a new battery? I unfortunately did not bring the box or receipt with me for this business trip but they should be able to see on my account that I purchased the phone from their store. I suppose it is worth a shot at least.

I got a new battery from Best Buy 3 days after I bought my phone. It is worth a try.



Posted via CB10

[Acumenight]

USA Today also a major major battery drain, Once i uninstalled it, I get from 7am to 8pm with a little juice left.

[scribacco]

Same experience here I am returning mine today...the reason to have a smartphone is the availability of programs(apps), the BB10 has none and the ones available are mostly from third parties are quite awful. Perhaps, I will buy it back down the road when the platform mature. They advertise this phone as an Iphone and Android contender..give me a break!
I guess if you already own a BB this phone is great but if you own one from the other guys it is not good enough to justify a switch.

Disclaimer: If you have already made up your mind to get a Z10 and are looking for validation, this isn't your topic.

I know that any topics expressing negative opinions towards BlackBerry devices are looked down upon here, but I just want to post my experience here for anyone looking to potentially make the switch from an iPhone 5 to a Z10.

(The first section of this post is most likely a one-off experience, so if you are just looking for impressions on the phone, scroll down)

My journey with the Z10 began on Friday (AT&T US launch date). As I was traveling through New Jersey, I found a nearby mall with an AT&T corporate store and decided to head in around lunch time. After checking out the phone for a few minutes, I decided to make the purchase and walked over to the counter. Not only was the sales associate shocked that I actually wanted to buy one (she didn't even know what the "Z10" was until I explained it to her) she then proceeded to tell me that I was unable to purchase a Z10 at the no commitment price and that it was only for "new activations". This made no sense to me as I have purchased countless new phones on launch day from AT&T stores on the no commitment price as I change phones to often to even be eligible for an upgrade. After going in circles with store management for half an hour, I walked away with no Z10 and was forced to call AT&T Premier customer support.

Premier support swore up and down that I COULD purchase a Z10 for the full retail price, so I walked back into the store and had the corporate rep talk to the store manager on the phone. After another 10/15 minutes, I again walked away with no Z10. I could not believe how immensely difficult it was for me to buy this new product. This was not a launch that was creating huge demands and causing lines out of the door, it was a device that AT&T should be desperate to sell to anyone, especially a loyal customer with $600 ready to throw at them.

Thankfully, this story came to an end when I went to another AT&T corporate store 10 minutes away and purchased the Z10 with no problem. Clearly this was just an issue with one stubborn/ignorant AT&T store manager, but still a frustrating way to start my Z10 experience nonetheless.


Ok, now on to the phone itself.

A little background: As mentioned earlier - I switch phones, a lot. I'm a sucker for new technology and I hate missing out when a new phone comes out as I believe that every platform/device deserves a chance.

Over the past 2 years or so, these are the devices I have owned (usually for at least a couple months at a time):

BB 9900
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
iPhone 4S
HTC 8x (Windows Phone)
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx
Nexus 4
And most recently, iPhone 5 (since launch)

Strictly my opinion here, but out of all of these, the iPhone 5 provided the best combination of functionality, performance and reliability.

To avoid typing a novel here, I'll jump into the pros and cons of the Z10 (in my experience)


Pros

-Multitasking: This device has the best multitasking I have ever seen on a mobile phone

-Speed/Performance: Very easy to zoom around the OS with minimal slowdown

-Notification light: No-brainer here

-BB10 OS: Really a great OS to use, very polished and genius integration of gestures

-Blackberry Hub: Not much to say here, it's awesome to have all of your stuff in one central place


Cons

-No competent streaming music platform: Having become accustomed to using Spotify on my iPhone, I made the switch to the Z10 expecting Slacker to be largely the same. I was wrong. The Slacker BB10 app offers almost no features for premium subscribers including no playlist creation or offline caching. Deezer looks to be promising but is not available in the US.

-The little things matter: To get around the limitation of Slacker, I downloaded some type of "Download Manager" from BB World that could be used to download YouTube videos. After downloading a few songs from YT and locating them on my device, I began to listen to a song and convinced myself that I could deal with this work around for the time being. As I hit the top button to put the phone to sleep and put it in my pocket as I listen to music, the song stops. That's right, you can't put the phone on sleep and have the media continue to play - extremely frustrating.

Other little things have been extremely frustrating as well. Text messages often come in with the incorrect timestamp, meaning conversations that occurred in the past hour are shoved down the list as happening last week (before I even had the phone). Push email with Exhange is sloooooow to communicate with the server. Messages pop up on the device quickly, but after reading an email on my desktop, the Z10 will continue to blink it's red light for 10/15 minutes whereas the iPhone would know almost instantly that an email was opened on another device.

-App selection: Not to beat a dead horse here but the app selection on BB World is nothing short of pathetic. Yes, big name apps like Facebook and WhatsApp are available, yet (these 2 especially) they are horribly developed and a pain to use. No banking apps is a huge shortfall and while there are some decent games, I'm not going to pay $6.99 for a game that was ported over from Android to BB10. Simply put, BB World is a half-baked effort and while I believe that the platform has promise, BB has a loooooong way to go to catch up with the big boys (iOS/Android) or even Windows Phone 8 for that matter.

-Battery Life: Here it is, the one thing that is causing me to ditch the Z10 after less than a week of owning it, the battery life. All else equal, if this phone had good or even moderately good battery life, I would be keeping it to see how the platform grows. The thing is, this device has the worst battery life I have ever seen in any mobile device, ever.

Before you jump down my throat, I have spent hours on end scouring the CB forums for ways to improve battery life and have tried dozens of fixes/tweaks to no avail. I am literally having to charge my Z10 from 0% - 100% a minimum of 2/3x a day, where the iPhone 5 would need one charge at night under the same usage conditions.

I've been told that the battery life will "get better over time" (which makes no sense) but at this point, I've had enough. I travel for work and after one short 2 hour flight of listening to music and writing a few emails, the battery on the Z10 is down to sub-20% from a full charge. Not only is the battery life horrendous, charging via USB is INCREDIBLY slow and almost not even worth it, meaning you will need to always have access to a wall outlet if you want to get any meaningful charge into your battery.

There is just no way that a brand new smartphone in 2013, with Bluetooth off, NFC off, LTE off and the screen brightness down to barely visible, should only be lasting a maximum of 4/5 hours per full charge. One of the things I loved most about my old BB Bolds/Curves was the amazing battery life. I understand the that battery life on a full touchscreen phone would be less, but there is no excuse for this type of performance when phones from Apple/HTC/Samsung/etc. all have better battery life with comparable or better internal hardware.

This topic is not meant to incite a trolling war or anything of the like, I simply wanted to document my experieces here to benefit other consumers.

Please feel free to post or PM any questions you may have. I will be continuing to use the Z10 exclusively until Friday when I return home from my current business travel.

[dbmalloy]

First and foremost... thanks for talking the time to share your experiences..... overall it does look like the cons outweigh the pros for you.... unfortunate... the thing you should have looked at before purchasing the phone is it is a first generation device... as such there will be bugs and shortcomings.... to think otherwise is foolish.... not that I disagree with your points... it just is not my experience...... my battery lasts between 12-15 hours for me... have a spare charged and tucked away just in case....the trick I did was turning down the brightness to around 60 percent... helped battery life immensely.... Coming from Apple I am a bit surprised you seem to have the battery being an issue considering the trials Apple has had with battery issues with OS updates.... It works itself out over time...I did not give up on my Ipad when the OS 6 came out and my battery dropped to 4 hours..... I do not think you are beating a dead horse on the app front... that being said you should have really done some research on the APP situation...it is well documented most coming from Apple find the app situation wanting to say the least... for me it is not my experience... maybe it is simply a case of not missing what you have not had..... In adopting any new a new device there are always compromise simply because the device and platforms are different..... old adage applies here "different strokes for different folks".....

[mefretwell]

OP, thank you for taking the time for this post. I like that you gave the device a fair shot and listed what you did & didnt like about it. I hate to see threads that just say "it's crap," w/o giving any reasons behind it.
This is what I look for on CB, the good & the bad. I read many comments before getting my 9930 and comments like yours do make it easier for those on the bubble.
though some of your issues would not pertain to me, though may pertain to others.
Thank you again for taking time to write @ your experiences.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk

[grevan88]

I don't know. When I first got my Z10 at Canadian launch, the battery only lasted 4/5 hours. After just over a week of draining and fully charging my battery with the phone off, my batter has been just fine. I don't even consider it anymore. It always lasts me my whole day.

Posted via CB10

[anon5129477]

I asked about any clearance sale on batterys for a 9810 at an ATT store. I was told that ATT stores DO NOT sell batteries period.

[Stwutter]

I think part of the trouble here is defining what light/moderate/heavy usage is. I use Twitter & FB, play the odd game, send a few e-mails, text a lot, listen to podcasts, check the weather etc. etc. Am I a 'heavy' user??? Not a clue. Compared to someone who just makes the odd call or text, I guess I am, but if you're streaming music & videos constantly, then no.

For what it's worth, I agree that the battery life on the Z10 is quite poor. My wife has an iSheep, and she can get nearly 2 full days out of it on one charge. I'd have absolutely no hope of getting close to that, even if I were to cut back on my usage by 50-70%. Having said that, she forgot to charge her phone last week, and got caught when it died at 6pm, and we were out. the Z10 had died at 3pm, but I'd put my spare battery in. I'm a BB nut, and it would take a LOT for me to dump them, but the fact is, I'm carrying 2 spare batteries with me whenever I know I'm out for anything over 12hrs - it's the only way I can guarantee to get home with the engine still running.

Everything else on the Z10 is perfect, however!

[blackberryovereverything]

It sounds like your phone is either defective or some piece of software is draining your battery.

Posted via CB10

[netwerx1]

If your sole reason for ditching it is the battery life, then you're not giving it a fair chance. I guarantee that your experience with having to charge several times a day is NOT the norm. First make sure that you do not have BlackBerry Travel installed (known battery killer). I rarely have to charge my battery during the day and in most cases have 25-35% remaining when it goes on the charger at bedtime. Moderate usage, the Z10 is my only phone and I use it for work and personal...I have 2 ActiveSync email accounts and one POP...all social accounts in use...no gaming. Wifi, bluetooth always on, NFC off, brightness at 65%. LTE off (no LTE in my area).

[homl]

Well here's a new one.

My Z10 is now hopping back and forth between full bars of 3G and "Emergency Calls Only".

That maybe your problem right there. If you are located where the cellular signal is poor, the Z10 will constantly searching for signal and use higher power to transmit and amplify that signal. This will drain you battery very fast.

[jstirtzinger]

The media you were playing and stopped after locking your phone, was it a video? Because that would make total sense to me. Playback of .mp3 should not stop after locking the phone, at least I wouldn't expect it to. Don't have my phone to test with yet.

False. I lock my Z10 all the time with music playing. This is not a real issue.

Posted via CB10

[agp101]

False. I lock my Z10 all the time with music playing. This is not a real issue.

Posted via CB10

Which is why the OP ticks me off. No use arguing or saying "Hey thanks for the feedback " yeah whatever.

Posted via CB10

[w0lfgang]

Yeah...yikes...hope I don't get a dud like that....TWO MORE DAYS!!! (VzW)

[TheRizzo41]

For the USA Today app, pull down the settings and turn push notifications off. That will stop the app from opening everytime a new story is added. It stays closed and won't drain your battery any more. I had the same issue until I changed that setting in the app.

[pjstock42]

Already tried a backup/restore on Sunday, still having the same issues with battery life.

Is Blackberry Travel really a battery killer? I assumed that if you turned off the automatic email scanning (which i did) it wouldn't be an issue... I would uninstall this but I'm currently using it in place of all of the flight tracking apps that I was accustomed to on iOS.

[pjstock42]

How is the Bold 9900 at this point in time? When I first got it at launch it had some bugs but I did like it.

Seeing that BB OS7 has spotify and I'm tired of iOS, I'm almost thinking about going back to the 9900...How is the battery life on current firmware + are there any good deals for an unlocked model?

[Stwutter]

I'm not sure, but I suspect few, if any, platforms other than BlackBerry have discussions on which apps you should ditch to help with battery life. BB Travel is a staple diet for some users too, not just some random Android port. It's likely correct, but a shame.

Posted via CB10

[pjstock42]

I'm not sure, but I suspect few, if any, platforms other than BlackBerry have discussions on which apps you should ditch to help with battery life. BB Travel is a staple diet for some users too, not just some random Android port. It's likely correct, but a shame.

Posted via CB10

It is mind-boggling that a phone oriented towards business-users would launch with a Travel app that everyone says you should uninstall because it kills battery...

Looks more and more like I will be back on the iPhone until the Q10 comes out and I can give that a try.