1. Jonesy1966's Avatar
    As some of you may be aware I won a Z30 a couple of weeks ago and have been using it now for 10 days. I wanted to review immediately as there were some things that immediately jumped out at me but waited until I got a better over all impression. As this has been done a billion times before I'll keep if brief and apologies if it's repetitive and unoriginal.

    PROS:

    Woven Glass Cover: It may be a small thing but this feels much more comfortable than my Q10 which feels rough in comparison. The Q10's cover is wearing at the bottom corners so I'll have to keep an eye on it;

    Balance: I've heard some complaints about the weight of the Z30 but I've always preferred a device with a bit of heft to it so I find it feels very balanced compared to my Z10. It gives the phone a quality feel. Talking of which;

    Materials: Obviously a well screwed together device using quality materials and my SGIV feels cheap and plasticky in comparison;

    Screen: As with the weight I've read some complaints about the screen quality and I just don't get it. The screen seems to "pop" compared to the Z10 and I have no complaints. I ripped Skyfall from Blu-Ray as a test and loaded it. The file was about 4.5GB by the time I was done and played beautifully, no lag or stagger, the picture was sharp, & colour saturation was perfect;

    Speakers: What can I say that hasn't been said before? The speakers on this thing are amazing for such a device! The top end is sharp without being piercing and the bottom end is nice and bassy with out being muffled, they're quite probably the loudest device speakers I've come across. Balance isn't perfect, but I rarely use the speakers for anything other than alerts and speaker phone anyway, HD calls give you the impression the person's right in the room with you;

    Performance: Nice and smooth. I'm not too sure whether it's the faster processor or the Paratek antenna or a combination of the two but there's no lag browsing, listening to Soundcloud or watching YouTube, etc. Apps seem to run a tad faster too. I like!;

    Battery: Wow! With my Z10 I normally could make it through the day. Just. I'd say I'd get about 12 hours out of it which I was perfectly happy with. Although I haven't really run the Z30 hard yet it's obvious that its battery is far superior especially taking into account the larger screen and faster processor. So far I'm getting a good 36 hours out of it between charges, that will drop once it completely takes over from the Z10, but I'm guessing I should still see 24+ hours. Anyhow, I think I've wasted my money buying the portable charger pack ;

    Camera: I'm still perfectly happy with BB10's camera, Mega-Pixels don't make a camera, flexibility does and with the inclusion of HDR and Time Shift, etc, I can get some pretty spectacular shots. You don't need anything much above 3MP for 99% of situations unless you're blowing up beyond poster size so I find the 5MP of the back camera more than adequate. If I need more then I'm obviously taking pictures that are beyond the capabilities of all camera-phones and I'll use my DSLR.

    CON(S)

    Micro USB: This has always been an issue with me since it was introduced, I find them flimsy and prone to breaking quite early in a device's life. The Micro-USB port on my Z30 seems a tad misaligned and I have difficulty inserting into the port, it gets a bit "crunchy" if that makes sense. Something I need to keep an eye on.

    That's it for cons but as I use the phone more I may add to it as I go along, pros and cons.

    CONCLUSION

    All I can say is that I didn't expect the Z30 to impress me so much. I've become a bit jaded when it comes to devices recently, my Z10 was never very reliable and my Q10 never really excited me. I think the Z30 can be summed up this way: They've taken everything that's good about the Z10 and tweaked it just enough to make it a very special phone.

    Will add as necessary. If there's anything you think I've missed in this brief review, good or bad, then let me know and I'll make sure I'll check it out.
    Ecm likes this.
    05-27-14 07:56 AM
  2. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    Thanks for your review...
    05-27-14 07:59 AM
  3. Jonesy1966's Avatar
    Just want to quickly mention the Paratek antenna. I live in a 1940's built, double brick constructed home with many brick interior walls, and needless to say I have a couple of "cold" spots around the house where the signal either degrades to one or two bars or the reception is too crappy to be of any use. With the Z30 I'm finding I can carry on perfectly normal conversations in these spots where as before I would lose the signal altogether or everything was garbled and unintelligible at both ends. Major boon for me, no more rushing to a "hot" spot when the phone rings.
    05-28-14 07:23 AM

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