1. lazypapichulo21's Avatar
    It's been a while since I've posted anything on CrackBerry. Life took over and it has strangled my free time. But I'm back now! I personally don't think this post is quite as eloquently written or refined as much as I'd normally like my writing to be, but I desperately needed to get all of this off of my chest.

    Exactly three months ago, I bought my first BlackBerry 10 device, the Z30. Looking back thus far, I can say that overall, it has been a pleasure to own and use! However, I will be impartial and say that as much as I like the Z30 and BlackBerry 10.2.1, there are definitely flaws and personal annoyances I've found in my time using the device. I will get to those later.

    Anyway, there are many things I enjoy about the Z30; its elegant and subtle design, the large 5� screen, the great battery life, the amazing virtual keyboard, its durable build, and the delightful glass weave back cover! In fact, oftentimes (even when I don't particularly need to use my Z30) I just hold the phone in my hands just to enjoy the feel of it lol as funny as that sounds.

    Continuing with the positives, I really enjoy using gestures to navigate the OS; I've researched BB10 and the Z30 a lot prior to buying it, so there wasn't much of a learning curve at all for me. I now much prefer using gestures instead of having to press home buttons and stuff lol; it's a little touch, but one that feels �forward thinking� compared to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

    I really enjoy how customizable the quick settings have become. I consider myself a power user, so being able to adapt the device to my needs is quite nice. Here's one scenario:
    I don't like leaving on Location Services because it saves battery life and I don't need constant GPS tracking; I only use it if I need to use Maps to get somewhere or look up the nearest restaurant if I'm in an unfamiliar area, or something like that. Therefore, instead of having to dig about 4 pages deep into the settings to turn on and off the Location Services, I can simply have a toggle for that and improve my efficiency. For comparison, when I had the iPhone 4S and updated it to iOS 7, I was really excited for the new �coat of paint� and features it brought. To my disappointment though, the Control Center didn't fully satisfy me because it wasn't (and as of this writing, still isn't) customizable. I didn't like that and it became annoying to use every time I needed to adjust a setting that wasn't preset to it, such as Location Services. To finish up this point, BB 10.2.1's ability to customize the quick settings has served me very well.

    The dual speakers on the Z30 are fantastic! I think this is one of my most favorite Z30 features. Whether I'm watching a video, listening to music, or talking to someone via BBM (Voice or Video; btw, the sound quality from a BBM call is amazing! Much better than a regular phone call), they produce loud, detailed, and crisp sound. The Z30 (alongside the HTC One imo) easily has the best speakers built into any smart phone on the market right now.

    I also like being able to control media playback with the volume and mute buttons. Although they, at times, go off when I don't want them to (sometimes I'll touch them by mistake or hit them against something accidentally; they're really sensitive buttons), I still think this is a nice touch.

    A small, yet great feature is Picture Passcode; it's become the default method of how I lock my device. I can't see myself unlocking my phone in any other way :P It also serves as a clever way to give yourself a separate wallpaper for your lock screen and your main screen. Additionally, I have fun showing it off to friends and family, and love knowing that BB10 is the only mobile OS that has this nifty feature.

    A lovely little detail of BB10 that I use constantly are the little dots underneath the app grid; they help me access apps and the hub extremely easily, make for incredibly smooth navigation of the UI, and is simply enjoyable to use. I find this to be a HUGE advantage over iOS, because it doesn't provide this simple, yet miraculous tool like BB10 does.

    Although I haven't taken advantage of this particular feature yet, I appreciate the fact that my Verizon Z30 has built-in wireless charging. Even though I think it's stupid of BlackBerry to not have made this a standard across all Z30's, I am fortunate to have the version that does. Once I feel comfortable spending the cash to buy a nice wireless charger, I know I'll use it incessantly.

    Another yet-unused feature is the USB OTG; I am eager to use this functionality once I get my hands on an adapter for it. Just the thought of hooking my Z30 up to a TV via Micro HDMI (or Miracast) alongside a bluetooth keyboard and USB hub (to plug in a mouse & external hard disk or flash drive) to get stuff done is exciting. It'll give me even more reason not to use my crappy laptop lol :P

    A personal favorite is how BB10 handles multitasking; imo, out of all the contemporary mobile OS's out there (iOS, Android, Windows Phone), I think BB10 executes multitasking in the most elegant and efficient way. If I had to make a slight criticism though, I wish you could simultaneously run perhaps 12 apps instead of just 8. No biggie.
    Anyway, I like how your minimized apps are right in front of you and are easily accessible at any time, no matter what you're doing; with iOS, you have to double tap the home button and it brings you to a separate multitasking menu; even though Apple has improved upon their multitasking over the years, I still believe that their method is somewhat clunky because it takes you out of the overall experience. Similar case with Android, where you have to go into another �menu� to handle your various running apps; I think Android does multitasking better than iOS, but it too takes you in and out of your experience, and I don't like that.

    There are several other things I like about BB 10.2.1 and the Z30, but it would make this post much longer than it already is. As much as I like the Z30, there are also negative things about it.

    Since the 10.2.1 update, I think the battery performance became worse. It doesn't seem to hold up as well as it used to when I was running just 10.2. It still has good battery life, but no longer is it great.

    A small, but very annoying thing is the emocons; I think they need to add more and better emocons. iOS imo has much better emcons than BB10 does. The following is a bigger frustration of mine: every time you are using emocons when chatting with someone (whether it's BBM, text, etc.), the standard keyboard pops back up after every emocon you use (smiley, keyboard, smiley, keyboard, repeat)!! I prefer the iPhone's way of doing emocons (emocon, emocon, emocon, so on and so forth until you are done with them), where you can just go crazy with them and pop back the regular keyboard whenever you're done. I really dislike the way BB10 does emocons! Which reminds me...

    BBM has gotten quite laggy over the past few updates. The lag isn't that bad on my Z30, so I guess this criticism isn't directed only towards my Z30 but to BBM in general. However, on my friend's Z10, she tells me the lag is so bad on her device that she hates using BBM. That stinks because I was growing fond of the secure IM service, but knowing the quality of it isn't consistent across the board bugs me (as I'm sure it does other BBM users out there). Unrelating to BBM's bugginess, I think BlackBerry needs to improve the stock Stickers set; give me all of the original emojis in sticker form, not just some of them.

    BlackBerry needs to improve their Voice Command and voice-to-text features, because quite truthfully they both suck lol. iOS has Siri and did these things much better. But what BB10 lacks in these features they do make up mostly for with its great universal search function and fantastic keyboard. Nonetheless, they are conveniences I miss from the iPhone.

    Although BB10 has significantly improved since its initial release, I still think it needs much more refinement and overall polish. Throughout the entire operating system, there are still some glitches in it that need to be ironed out. For example, sometimes when I hit the rotation lock icon in my quick settings to activate or deactivate it, it automatically reels up the entire quick settings menu back up. I wouldn't necessarily have an issue with this if we were able to set the phone up to do that either every time or not at all. The fact that it does that sometimes and other times doesn't (and you aren't granted any input in that; it just does it on its own) is annoying and very inconsistent with the rest of the OS's fluidity. There are other minor, yet noticeable instances of errors BB10 has but it's stuff like this that unfortunately detract from the cohesiveness of the experience.

    This brings me to another flaw: I think the virtual keyboard is fantastic (much more accurate and comfortable to type on than the iPhone's); I love flicking up to insert words it predicts next. However, I think the keyboard could use some polish as well. I hate it when it features really inaccurate or odd next-word suggestions; for example, it won't always instantly display a word I use commonly but it'll randomly feature a really strange, rarely used phrase such as �how people really use mobile� (or something to that effect). Again, another inconsistency with the operating system that definitely needs fixing up.

    Occasionally, apps simply crash! Whether I'm currently in an app or leave an app minimized as an Active Frame for an extended period of time (such as FastTube), some apps just crash for no reason. It doesn't happen often, but it's really irritating when it does and I think it's inexcusable, especially because BB10 is built upon QNX, which is supposed to be an incredibly reliable architecture.

    I also wish that the �Attachment� feature in the Hub also filtered out attachments you get in BBM's, text messages, etc. instead of just emails. This would make this feature much better and would give me more reason to use it.

    Some of my cons are nitpicky (and tbh, I have a few more than what I have listed here), but some of them are legitimately important and I wish BlackBerry would smooth over them in 10.3 (or whatever update is supposed to come out in the upcoming months).

    Before I end this piece on a sour note, I'd just like to mention that despite the irritations, the pros outweigh the cons by a significant margin. The flow of BB10 is irreplaceable, the Hub is wonderful, responding to emails, text messages, BBM's, and other messages is a breeze, and the ultimate enjoyment I get from swiping in and out of BlackBerry 10 is simply one-of-a-kind! And honestly, I find it much more difficult to put down my Z30 than it ever was with my 4S

    To conclude, I think my points of views on the positives, negatives, and other observations about the Z30 and BB10 have been worth sharing. Just expressing them with other enthusiastic BB10 users makes me feel comfortable taking the time out to even do so in the first place. Anyway, I've taken both the good and bad with the BlackBerry Z30, and as a whole, I've enjoyed the ride so far. I look forward to continuing my journey with it and I hope BlackBerry continues to deliver a compelling mobile experience. Thank you
    Last edited by lazypapichulo21; 04-17-14 at 02:01 AM.
    04-16-14 10:27 PM
  2. ArithomasII's Avatar
    Great post.

    Posted from my zee thirt teee
    lazypapichulo21 likes this.
    04-16-14 10:42 PM
  3. Obinna Afuzi's Avatar
    Great stuff.

    Via Z30
    lazypapichulo21 likes this.
    04-16-14 11:17 PM
  4. DocDRM's Avatar
    Hey OP :

    http://crackberry.com/so-youre-black...-want-hear-you


    That's meant as a complement BTW. Nice write-up. Go test with CBK!
    Posted via CB10
    lazypapichulo21 likes this.
    04-17-14 12:29 AM
  5. zocster's Avatar
    That's what I call an honest review, well done OP.
    lazypapichulo21 likes this.
    04-17-14 12:54 AM
  6. Maserati Storm's Avatar
    I have been using the wireless charging since I got my phone, I don't know the recharge time, but i do know it's great no to dig around for a charger when I have a pad there waiting! It's the perfect complement to bedside mode.

    Posted via CB10
    lazypapichulo21 likes this.
    04-17-14 08:47 AM
  7. jayzero76's Avatar
    Got a Q10 and really like it! Don't care so much about apps so just email and texting! Doesn't use Instagram or tumbler at all not important for me just wanna have the feel of a keyboard that looks good!

    I also carry an iPad around and that works for me!

    Z30 is a touch phone and that's why nothing for me so good it is but just no keyboard


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    lazypapichulo21 likes this.
    04-17-14 09:14 AM

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