[needforbbx]

Decent (IMHO) review posted below (will have to go to link for video and chart of battery life comparison)

Blackberry Z30 is great if you’re a tweak geek


BlackBerry Z30
◾Likes Great sound, great call quality, nice big screen
◾Dislikes One of its best features, the ability to run most Android apps, is deliberately crippled
◾Price $699 (plus labour)

The price tag on BlackBerry’s first 5-inch smartphone, the Z30, reads “$699”. What it should read is “$699 plus labour”.

That’s to account for the time it takes you (or your geeky friend) to tweak the BlackBerry Z30 to turn it into the great phone that it’s capable of being.

I just spent about four hours tweaking it, and I now think the Z30 is terrific, and good value for money for those with the time, patience and technical know-how (or geeky friend) to coax it into shape.

But who has that time? Who wants a phone they have to tweak?

That’s the tragedy of the Z30, and of BlackBerry as a whole. BlackBerry makes fabulous products, but it keeps shooting itself in the foot (or, as it has turned out, the head) with tragic errors.

You see, the BlackBerry Z30, like the last few BlackBerrys, runs an operating system known as BlackBerry 10, and BB10 is a marvellous operating system except for one, probably fatal, flaw: it doesn’t have all your favourite apps.

Only, it does! If you’re willing and able to tweak it, the Z30 has it all! Having spent the best part of an afternoon fiddling with the Z30, I now have all the apps I have been sorely missing on BlackBerry – Spotify, Instagram, Google Maps, Google Earth, XBMC, Locus Pro, Triple Town, Candy Crush Saga – running either perfectly, or, in the case of the games, acceptably well on the phone, and I could scarcely be happier with it.

Results table don’t delete

Insane logic
Between the BlackBerry’s own, first-rate apps such as Browser, Contacts, Calendar, and Hub, and the new apps I have added with a not inconsiderable amount of effort, the Z30 is great. It’s fast, stylish, feature packed and cheap.

It makes me want to find the nearest BlackBerry employees, and throttle the living daylights out of them. Why, when you’re struggling to sell any phones at all, do you have to make it so hard to own one? Can’t you see how insane that is?

To explain: one of the big new features on the Z30 (apart from its big new screen and its big new sound, which I will get to presently) is the fact that it runs a new version of BB10, known as 10.2.

One of BB10.2’s new features is an upgrade to its Android engine, which allows you to run just about any Android app you can think of. (The previous version of BB10 had an old version of Android in it that would run barely any apps.)

Only, when BlackBerry ships the Z30, the Android engine is locked, and it too will barely run anything. You basically have to hack it, installing what’s known as a “developer token”, to unlock it and run Android apps like Spotify and Instagram.

Once you do that, and once you configure your PC to convert Android apps for your newly hacked phone, installing new apps is quick and easy.

Not everything will run – apps such as Google Play Music and Hangouts, that require a Google login, won’t – but 90 per cent of the Android apps I have installed run, and run very well indeed.

Worth the effort


Essentially, a hacked Z30 has all of the benefits of a BlackBerry phone (chiefly, the best messaging there is on a phone, and the best keyboards) with many of the benefits of an Android phone thrown in for good measure.

Why BlackBerry doesn’t ship the phone with an unlocked Android engine, and why it doesn’t set up a website full of Android apps that have been converted for its Android engine, is beyond me. It can’t be for security, as BlackBerry claims, given that the lock can be readily (if not so easily) unlocked.

But if you think you’re up for a bit of tinkering, and if your main use for a smartphone is messaging, web browsing and calls, and if you don’t mind buying into a platform with an uncertain future now that BlackBerry has been sold to private investors, then the Z30 is worth the effort.

It’s not a small phone. It’s big and heavy relative to most other 5-inch phones, making it seem either more premium, or just bigger, depending on your perspective.

I’m one of those in the iPhone-5-is-too-light camp, so I like the heft of the Z30. And between its new, dynamic antenna, which optimises voice and data connections, and its new high-bandwidth voice codecs that offer better call quality than even Skype, it is a genuinely premium phone in a number of respects.

Though not in every respect. Its new, Super AMOLED screen is perhaps not as sharp as it could be – it’s just 1280 x 720 pixels, when competitors are making 5-inch phones with 1920 x 1080 pixels – but it’s sharp enough for the pixels to be invisible to my (slightly ageing) eyes.

The camera on the Z30 is an improvement on the cameras on the Z10 and the Q10, but while it’s easily good enough for photographing receipts and for Instagram, in our tests it proved to be no match for the cameras on Sony, Samsung, Nokia and Apple phones.

This is still a BlackBerry we’re talking about, after all, and as the company confirmed with its recent restructuring, withdrawing itself from the consumer market, BlackBerry is all about work.

It’s just a pity the Z30 makes you do so much work just to make it work properly.

[Blacklatino]

As opposed to threads like these: Just got my Z30! WOW! or this, Think that Z10 is fast?

Expect more of the same Great vs. Sucks threads about the Z30. It's restless times here on CB.

[tonytraj17]

Man this was a real good read. Lots of valid points and weaknesses about the Z30. He does bring up a good point about the runtime. I honestly dont see why BlackBerry doesn't unlock it and save us the hassle of having to use debug tokens. I know sideloading is not something they want to promote, but it will get more word of mouth if you could download easily the top apps to fill that void BlackBerry World currently has. Plus i heard (or at least i thought i did) that the runtime isolates a problem, so if the app was causing trouble it would shut down the runtime and not bother the core OS. Any ways runtime and cons aside, i cant wait for my Z30.

[pttptppt]

Why does this guy think side loading is hacking? He doesn't know you don't hack a BlackBerry?

Posted via CB10

[GTiLeo]

not a bad review but people don't get why blackberry locks down the Android runtime, its because you're basically pirating an app a developer built for the use on something else.

BlackBerry built the Android player to make it easier for developers to port over their apps to BBworld, but we use it for other things like sideloading Android apps. will some developers care, they may but most of the sideloaded apps are not paid they are usually free apps so the developer is not really making money off them, but they may make their money based on ads that who knows if it'll register an ad hit properly

[Bbnivende]

Is there a link that gives the instructions to how to perform this tweak and file conversion that the author refers to ? I assume this will apply to the Z10 too once 10.2 is released. Thanks

edit: Found the Link ... ah no, not for me. BlackBerry needs to sell a Android version. I want to buy my apps at a "store" and get updates and support.

[Fnord]

Why does this guy think side loading is hacking? He doesn't know you don't hack a BlackBerry?

Posted via CB10

Agreed. If anything he's not "tweaking" the device, but the app, which then loads to the device and runs like any other coming out of BB World.

[twstd.reality]

Yah not sure what he needs to tweak? Had my z10 up and running in half an hour.

Posted via CB10

[kbz1960]

I've seen people saying the ear volume is too low on phone calls. The reviewer didn't have that issue?

[cincibluer6]

Tweaking isn't necessarily a foreign concept on any phone. Though Android can run fine out of the box, setting up widgets and all that takes time sometimes and can be considered tweaking.

I do agree that sideloading via the Jolla method would be much better than what BB has come up with.

[NaijaBerry]

Wow great review, I was stuck between the iP5s and the Z30 for my second phone to support my Q10(Superb), but now that I know I can "hack" a Z30, can't wait to get my hands on a Z30 so I can start "hacking" the heck out of it!

[Tre Lawrence]

Gtleo pretty much hits the nail on the head with regards to the "locked" runtime. It's not rocket science. BBRY can't explicitly encourage piracy.

[playbookster]

The z30 has a faster browser than all android phones? Impressive

Posted via CB10

[axeman1000]

Yep Even a itoy had to be jail broke just to do anything but no one in these forums will admit that, just typical media kicking when they are down. So what you had to add a developer token because the os hasn't been fully released to all models, it fixes the app issue, just shut up and enjoy it!

Posted via CB10

[SEAWARRIOR]

not a bad review but people don't get why blackberry locks down the Android runtime, its because you're basically pirating an app a developer built for the use on something else.

BlackBerry built the Android player to make it easier for developers to port over their apps to BBworld, but we use it for other things like sideloading Android apps. will some developers care, they may but most of the sideloaded apps are not paid they are usually free apps so the developer is not really making money off them, but they may make their money based on ads that who knows if it'll register an ad hit properly

if they'd port, or go native w/ their apps, this wouldn't be an issue...

[PedroBorgas]

OP,

How would it sound if BB, after building and OS from scratch then to allow for another one to "take all the credit"?

"Hey, buy a BB ZXX, it runs Android apps"... that would be saying your work sucked...

Sent from my BlackBerry 9800 using Tapatalk

[Tre Lawrence]

if they'd port, or go native w/ their apps, this wouldn't be an issue...

Not a reasonable excuse.

[playbookster]

Why are you guys complaining about giving app devs a larger audience?

Posted via CB10

[SEAWARRIOR]

Not a reasonable excuse.

not an excuse,,, just sayin' that this issue wouldn't exist if they'd make legit versions...

[Bbnivende]

OP,

How would it sound if BB, after building and OS from scratch then to allow for another one to "take all the credit"?

"Hey, buy a BB ZXX, it runs Android apps"... that would be saying your work sucked...

Sent from my BlackBerry 9800 using Tapatalk

It would sound like Blackberry has a viable ecosystem.

[SharonRD]

I've seen people saying the ear volume is too low on phone calls. The reviewer didn't have that issue?

I'm wondering about this too.

Posted via CB10 on my sexy Q10

[Javid Gozalov]

Good read lol

Posted via CB10