BlackBerry is BACK with one of the most unique and quirky handsets we’ve EVER tested
Mobile Phones
BlackBerry. Back in 2009 the name meant phones, security and success. If you wanted a smartphone, you only had one real option – a BlackBerry. Fast forward to 2014, however, and Canada’s biggest export since double-denim, following two years of lay-offs, tanking share prices and CEO switches, has come to stand for something else entirely. So much so, in fact, that BlackBerry is now an outsider (fourth, behind iOS, Android and Windows Phone) in the very industry it helped create.
So, is it too late for BlackBerry?
In a word: NO – not by a long shot. The company has a new CEO, John Chen, who is slowly but surely bringing life back into BlackBerry’s balance sheets, a solid, workable mobile OS and plenty of operating cash to see it through the year (around $3 billion, last time we checked). There was quite a bit of trepidation over whether BlackBerry would remain in the handset-building game, after word got out about the company considering a switch to a “platform and services-only” approach. This didn’t happen, of course, and now we have the BlackBerry Passport, which doesn’t really need any introductions whatsoever –– it’s THAT square phone you’ve been hearing so much about these past few weeks.
Is it any good? That depends where you go for your reviews, really. KYM has long been a fan of BB10 and what it stands for, but for the longest time we’ve also felt a little let down by the hardware it shipped inside. Can the BlackBerry Passport change this? Lets bloody well find out!
BlackBerry Passport Review: Design
If you want to get people talking, give them something interesting to talk about. And in a world of rectangular slabs dominated by two platforms, it’s good to see something a little more eccentric with regards to design. Yes, the iPhone 6 is gorgeous. And, yes, the LG G3 and HTC One M8 are beautifully designed smartphones with excellent operating systems, but variety (at least, outside the mobile space) is considered the spice of life, and for the longest time nothing of note has really happened in the arena of phone design (excluding, of course, the phablet).
UNTIL NOW.
The BlackBerry Passport is big –– very BIG –– it’s square AND it has a physical keyboard, which also doubles as a trackpad for scrolling around menus, apps and webpages. And all of that has caused a lot of people to write the handset off as nothing more than a mobile version of a bearded lady, labelling it a freak that’s kind of interesting but hardly convenient in normal, everyday life. But here’s the thing: this sentiment couldn’t be further from the truth.
Measuring in at 128 x 90.3 x 9.3 mm, the BlackBerry Passport, like all good things, is more than a handful. You can’t really use it comfortably with one hand, but so what? I can’t use my Nexus 5 with one hand all that well. Ditto the iPhone 6 Plus. The Passport weighs in at 196g and is heavier than anything the company has ever produced. It is also more premium than anything BlackBerry has turned out in living memory, with a gorgeous metal frame, high-grade polycarbonate backing, pitch-perfect keyboard, and an ultra-high-resolution 4.5in display.
As I see it there are two talking points regarding the Passport’s design: it’s keyboard and the display. The former is a full QWERTY setup arranged over three rows with the space bar housed centrally on the bottom line of keys. BlackBerry says this is the best keyboard it has ever produced, and it really is –– it surpasses the Q10’s setup in everyway. And the main reason for this is because it is A LOT smarter. On top of that it is more fully integrated with BB10 and the overall experience of using the phone.
I’ll admit, ahead of using the BlackBerry Passport I had plenty of reservations about this device. The shape didn’t really appeal to me, and the idea of using a QWERTY keyboard, while always an interesting prospect, struck me as a bit antiquated. I really liked the BlackBerry Q10 and used it as my daily driver for a good six months, but in the end I still ended up going back to Android. The Passport is better than the Q10 because it takes the principles that made it great (an excellent QWERTY combined with a decent OS) and evolves it into a handset that feels like a proper, full-on 2014 flagship – something that can and will (in some instances) replace an iPhone or Android handset.
The design is definitely controversial and it certainly won’t suit all tastes. But that’s OK. If you want an iPhone, chances are you already own one. Ditto for Android. The Passport handles pretty much as you’d expect. It does feel incredibly wide compared to standard-issue handsets from LG, Google, HTC and Apple, and it does take some getting used to… but, AGAIN, so what? You could say the exact same thing about the original Samsung Galaxy Note or the iPhone 6 Plus for that matter.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is to say different folks find different things attractive (just look at Benedict Cumberbatch), so rather than taking my word for it –– even though I do like the way it looks, and find Mr Cumberbatch very handsome –– the best possible route for you, dear reader, is to ask yourself whether you could see yourself using a handset that looks like this? If your the gut answer is no, fine, move along. But if you’re intrigued by its odd proportions and find yourself musing about what it would feel like in your hand, or how its keys work in practice, then I’d advise you to go and check one out in a phone shop because there is a certain je nais sais quois about the Passport that I think A LOT of people will really enjoy.
BlackBerry Passport Review: Display
The Passport’s display is a 4.5in 1440 x 1440 pixel IPS LCD setup and is the best display I’ve ever seen inside a BlackBerry handset – bar none. BlackBerry chose this resolution and aspect ratio (1:1) for a very specific reason: normal mobile phones display 40 characters across their screens, but with the Passport’s extra width you get 60 characters, which makes reading things like eBooks, webpages and - BlackBerry’s favourite - spreadsheets, A LOT easier. Or, if you prefer, better, by showing you more of what you’re looking at. Either way, it’s a good thing, as you can see below:
With regards to clarity and colour production, the HD-grade panel also delivers the goods. Colours look fantastic with excellent contrast and lots of detail. Text appears crisp and there’s no hint of pixilation anywhere, whether on the web, in an app, or when reading an eBook. Viewing angles are great too, and the Passport also performs well in direct sunlight –– unlike my current Nexus 5. But this was always going to be the case, as what you’re looking at is an HD IPS LCD panel.
The only real downside of this setup is to do with video, which is affected by boxing on account of the Passport’s 1:1 aspect ratio. This isn’t ideal by any stretch of the imagination and makes TV shows and Films a bit of a no-go on the Passport. Quick YouTube sessions are fine, but the Passport does lose out to other more traditional 16:9 aspect ratio handsets in this regard.
BlackBerry Passport Review: Hardware & Specs
Inside the Passport you’ll find Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 chipset running alongside 3GB of RAM and an Adreno 330 GPU. That’s a pretty ferocious setup even by Android standards and makes for one hell of an experience in the day to day. Even more so when you factor in that BlackBerry, like Apple, has complete control over the software and hardware inside its handsets, which always translates in to a smoother, more power-efficient experience for the end-user. And the Passport is no exception to this rule.
Back in the day a phone’s performance used to be a BIG talking point. Apple’s iPhone 4, with its seamless, judder-free scrolling, for instance, springs to mind. Nowadays though people take things like that for granted, and the real battles are fought and won on how a handset handles multi-tasking, how it manages power, and how its features (things like Apple Pay, for instance) benefit you, the end user. The Passport delivers solid performance across the board, and nothing you can throw it at will phase it. But this isn’t all that interesting because every modern flagship is the same in this regard, and the Passport, like the iPhone and LG G3, delivers solid, reliable performance across the board.
The Passport is the first instance where BlackBerry has released a handset that could give any iPhone or Android handset a run for its money in terms of gross hardware and specs, however, and that is pretty interesting in itself. What’s even more interesting is why BlackBerry ramped the specs and hardware up so high? Could it be because the company has some BIG plans relating to BB10 updates in the coming months?
BlackBerry Passport Review: BB10.3 Software
BlackBerry 10 is perhaps one of the most under-rated mobile platforms on the planet. A lot of this is to do with BlackBerry’s previous hardware (the Z10 and Q10 weren’t all that desirable), but most is to do with the fact that the vast majority of people these days go for either Android, meaning Samsung, or Apple’s iPhones. People do buy Windows Phone, sure. But when I say “most” I’m talking in a macro, hundreds-of-millions-type sense. And in this context there really is only Apple and Samsung, and this is a real shame because both Windows Phone and BB10 now have a lot to offer.
Since I last used BB10 –– around 12 months –– BlackBerry has pumped out a fair few updates. We’re now to BB10.3 and the UX, I’m pleased to report, is in much better shape with improved iconography, better multitasking, and new features like BlackBerry Assistant. BlackBerry says BB10 is all about getting stuff done and is designed, from the ground up, for professional users with professional needs. This means it does things like email very well. But so does iOS and Android, so this can hardly be considered a USP for BlackBerry alone. Where things start to differ is how you do email and the like on BB10. Take the BlackBerry Hub, for instance, which is essentially a place where all your IM, email, and social feeds live. It’s always a swipe away from anywhere in the BB10 UX, meaning quick, easy access to stuff like emails and notifications as soon as they happen.
Universal Search is now A LOT better too. Just start typing and BB10 will open up a search dialogue with everything related to your query that is on your phone –– contacts, emails, videos, notes, and pictures –– as well as links to things like BlackBerry World, Twitter, Google and Bing. Then there are things like Advanced Interaction, whereby the phone’s sensors can do wonderful stuff like switch profiles, to silent, for instance, when placed face down, as well as a built-in power management tool that relays information to you about what’s eating up all your juice at any given moment.
BlackBerry Blend lets you pick up texts and emails from your BlackBerry on your PC so long as they’re on the same network, and BlackBerry Assistant (BB10’s answer to Siri) opens up a myriad of hands-free interaction options. I don’t use these Assistant things all that much in my day-to-day, but while testing Assistant I found it to be just as good as Siri. It can set reminders, add appointments, reply to emails and texts, and read aloud emails if you’re driving, for instance. So if voice control is your thing, well, you’re good to go. But if like me you see these types of features as more latent-type-me-too things, you’ll probably forget all about it after using it once.
Another new feature inside BB10.3 is Endless Folders, whereby you can simply chuck hundreds of pointless applications –– i.e. the majority of the stock BlackBerry ones, which cannot be deleted –– inside and never have to look or think about them again. You can also merge two folders into one, although you cannot yet have folders within folders. But the big take-home feature for me as a returning BB10 user is the aesthetic changes, because previously BB10 looked a bit clunky and rough around the edges when compared to its peers. Nowadays, though, it is a gorgeous little setup, packed full of useful features. In fact there’s a bit TOO much to go into here so for the sake of brevity I decided to do a separate piece on BB10.3, which we’ll be uploading next week.
But before we move on there are a few points I’d like to make regarding BlackBerry 10’s application situation. The first is Amazon Apps, which is now available on the platform, giving you access to tens of thousands of Android applications usually reserved for Kindle-only products like the Fire HDX. This is a HUGE boon for BlackBerry users and a great score for BlackBerry too, as it goes a long way to remedying the still grossly under-stocked BlackBerry World. Amazon’s App Store isn’t perfect by any stretch and still lacks many applications you’ll find inside Apple’s App Store, Google Play and, in some instances, BlackBerry World. It’s not a saving grace, but it represents progress towards a goal and that is what BB10.3 is all about.
The second is to do with porting Android applications over onto your device using .BAR files. Now this feature is bloody amazing, because if you can’t find what you’re looking for inside BlackBerry World or Amazon Apps, say, Google Chrome, for instance, you still have options. Simply Google, “Chrome .BAR file” and you’ll be pointed towards an absolute plethora of websites and resources that’ll help you install Android applications directly to your BlackBerry Passport. Most worked fine in our testing, but you will come across the occasional dud that lags and is generally a pain in the backside. If this happens, don’t fret, just find another .BAR file and see if that one works better. Obviously this isn’t ideal for everybody and it does require a little bit of fiddling round with cables and a PC or Mac, but, HEY, at least you have options! Imagine all those poor Windows Phone users... they’d sell their own grandmas for a feature like this inside Windows Phone 8.1.
BlackBerry Passport Review: Camera
BlackBerry’s never been known for its imaging prowess, and while the company did make some pretty solid changes to the camera app inside BB10, the overall experience, when compared to Windows Phone, iOS or Android, was still lacking somewhat.
Inside the Passport, however, things get decidedly different with the addition of a 13MP, 5-element f2.0 sensor, complete with Optical Image Stabilisation (yep, just like the iPhone 6 Plus, Galaxy Note 4, and LG G3), LED flash, and full HD video recording capabilities at up to 60fps. Once again, on paper the Passport is something of a beast.
TimeShift remains intact and BlackBerry has included a bunch of other useful features (native panorama and a Slow Motion feature) that make capturing images a vastly superior experience than it was aboard the BlackBerry Z10, Z30 and Q10. The camera itself is a little slow when it comes to focus and it does take a while to open, but these are clearly things that can be amended with a software patch. So, like the Nexus 5 before it, this isn’t something you need to be too concerned with, because imaging capabilities, across the board, have improved in almost every regard, and this is the real take away message here.
BlackBerry Passport Review: Battery
One area where nearly all of BlackBerry’s BB10 handsets have fallen down in the past is battery. Neither the Z10 nor Z30 offered the kind of battery endurance one found aboard the company’s older, more traditional handsets. The Q10 did a little better than its all-touch brothers, but still wasn’t great, although could remove the battery and replace it with a fresh one, a process that vastly increases you’re options when away from a charger, providing you have a fully charged unit ready to go.
The bad news is the Passport’s battery is non-removable, meaning no hot swapping on the go. Is this an issue? Not really. The Passport has a HUGE battery pack that will almost certainly deliver 24-hours of usage from a single charge. It’s a 3450mAh battery pack and it delivers, in our tests, a good day and a bit with heavy usage. Switch to low-to-moderate and you’re looking at a solid couple of days.
In our Django Test, whereby we play the entirety of Django Unchained (2.45 hours) with the screen on full-whack and everything switched on, the Passport had 67% battery left when the credits rolled. One of the best performers in this endurance test was Nokia’s Lumia 930 – it scored 71%. As you can see the Passport is only a few points behind, and this is very impressive indeed; the Lumia 930 beats nearly EVERYTHING, including the LG G3, HTC One M8, Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3.
Basically: when it comes to battery, the Passport is one of the best handsets currently on market, surpassing nearly everything we’ve tested in the Android space. How it compares to the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 remains to be seen –– we’re currently in the process of testing both right now.
BlackBerry Passport Review: Verdict
I didn’t want to like this handset. I had A LOT of preconceptions about the way it looked, switching back to a physical keyboard, and having to use BB10 for a week or more for the purpose of this review. Like a lot of people, I’d made my mind up about the Passport without even using it –– and this was wrong.
The Passport is a weird looking piece of tech, yes, and the keyboard does take a bit of getting used to, but, like all new ideas, once you’ve accustomed yourself to its ways you feel right at home banging out emails, editing documents and tweeting. It does require two hands to use it, but, as I mentioned earlier in the review, so too do a lot of handsets these days –– the iPhone 6 Plus, LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 to name but a few.
The battery is excellent, ditto call quality, and there’s more than enough power inside to ensure everything operates in a silky smooth manner. I really enjoyed the improvements BlackBerry has made to the camera, and the screen, as we’ve already established, is just marvellous. The only real issue BlackBerry has on its hands is the BB10 ecosystem – it pales in comparison to Android and iOS. The ability to sideload Android applications is a HUGE USP for the platform, but I fear the benefit might be lost on some users, as it’s still a rather fiddly process and good results are not guaranteed.
For me personally, however, I think the ability to sideload Android applications on the BB10 is one of its best features. After less than 30 minutes, I had pretty much all my usual Android applications downloaded, installed and up and running on the Passport, and that’s something you’re never able to do on a Windows Phone device.
The main issue with the Passport, however, isn’t really anything to do with the handset itself or BB10.3, for that matter, as both are great in nearly every respect –– it’s to do with Android and iOS being so polished and mature. That’s the issue here: why would your average Joe buy a Passport when they can get an iPhone 6 or Samsung Galaxy Alpha for around the same price?
In my honest opinion, if ecosystem is important to you and you’re already locked into Apple or Google’s respective walled gardens, this handset probably isn’t for you. It’s a great device but it does things differently and its dual-app stores still feel very light when compared to Android and Apple’s respective setups (although, should you wish you can sideload, which is GREAT). This is really all that separates the Passport from any other Android or iOS handset I've tested this year.
If, however, you want a powerful piece of kit that is excellent at multitasking, has a gorgeous keyboard, brilliant battery, and an excellent notifications hub, as well as a growing selection of applications and market-leading security, then you could do A LOT worse than the BlackBerry Passport.
Blackberry
BlackBerry Passport
BlackBerry 10.3
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
BlackBerry Q10
BlackBerry Z30
Typical Price:
£529.00
Reviews
Pros:
Excellent battery; Best in-class QWERTY keyboard; Gorgeous display; Decent Camera; The ability to side-load Android applications; BB Hub is awesome for notifications; SD-support; Premium design and finish
Richard Goodwin
Cons:
BB10 –– even with Amazon Apps –– is still app and content-light compared to Android and iOS; Design of handset won't suit all tastes
14:33, 6 Oct 2014
Verdict:
The Passport is a weird looking piece of tech, yes, and the keyboard does take a bit of getting used to, but, like all new ideas, once you’ve accustomed yourself to its ways you feel right at home banging out emails, editing documents and tweeting. Good work, BlackBerry!