Today is the day BlackBerry fans have been waiting for…for years. A true competitor to Android and iOS is finally here and it’s called BB10.
To say RIM has a hill to climb is an understatement. Several years of ignoring the competition and ignorantly marching on with outdated software has cost them dearly in several key markets as well as the high-end market that Apple is eating up. With BB10, RIM is looking to reboot their hardware and software all at once, and offer up perhaps the biggest tech comeback of all time.
Kicking off that reboot is a rebranding of the company itself. “RIM” is no more. Now, the company is merely “BlackBerry”. To some, dropping the long time Research In Motion branding seems unwise. But in the grander scheme of things, people knew “BlackBerry”, not “Research In Motion” or “RIM”. It’s a good move.
But we all know what you really want – more hardware and software news. Let’s get to it…
Z10
The BlackBerry Z10 is what the modern smartphone user is most used to – an all touchscreen device with a few buttons around its edges. The 4.2-inch 1280 x 768 (356ppi) display is the window to BlackBerry’s new world. Powering it all is a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor along with 2 GB of RAM and support for microSD cards up to 32 GB in size. Camera abilities are provided by a rear-facing 8-megapixel shooter capable of 1080p HD video capture set alongside an LED flash. A second front-facing 2-megapixel camera manages to get 720p video capture under it’s belt should you not want to flip your phone around to make use of the rear camera. Wireless abilities are vast and robust, and include support for 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, NFC and GPS as well as 4G mobile hotspot features. Connecting to the outside world is made possible thanks to microUSB and microHDMI ports and of course, a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Availability for the Z10 is “in the coming weeks”.
Note: U.S. Availability won’t happen until mid-March according to BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, who cites U.S. carriers’ longer testing times.
Q10
The Q10 is for the hardcore BlackBerry loyalists who still live and die by the physical keyboard. And if there’s one thing RIM/BlackBerry has always excelled at, it’s physical keyboards. They’re simply the best of the best. The Q10 takes that old staple of success and mixes in the new BB10 software for a a powerful combination.
Spec wise the Q10 is pretty much identical to the Z10 on the inside. Seriously, everything you saw above is crammed into this little beast. The only difference is of course the display. On the Q10 you’re looking at a 3.1-inch 720 x 720 touchscreen display.
Keyboard lovers will have to wait “about a month” after the Z10′s release to get their hands on something a bit more physical.
Note: U.S. Availability won’t happen until mid-March according to BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, who cites U.S. carriers’ longer testing times.
BB10
Part of what makes BB10 so unique, according to BlackBerry, is that it “just flows”. Demoed on stage during the official unveil, BlackBerry employees showed off how simple it was to simply swipe to the right no matter what was currently on screen to see current notifications. This, in BlackBerry’s own words, makes the platform less “in-and-out” like other mobile platforms. Perhaps best of all about BlackBerry’s Flow UI is that all of the easy app switching and interaction can be done with just your thumb. In the age of gigantic 4.5+ screens, one-handed use is somewhat of a novelty these days.
Tying into the Flow UI, BlackBerry Hub is the modern message center where your alerts and notifications go. Similar to Apple’s Notification Center and Android’s notification shade (but on steroids), BlackBerry Hub allows users to read and respond to messages regardless of network; you don’t have to jump in and out of different social networking/messaging apps to use them. BlackBerry has also built contact pages into the Hub allowing users to see a ton of relevant information for each individual contact including recent updates on connected social networks.
- BlackBerry Balance is BlackBerry’s solution to work and play, enterprise and personal. The idea is to kill the idea that work professionals need a work phone and a personal phone by allowing end users to do everything on one device, as well as securing everything enough that the two lives remain separate. Part of this “firewall” of sorts comes from separated apps; a simple gesture on the home screen reveals personal or work apps. Speaking of which, work apps have a special briefcase symbol on the corner of their icon denoting it is a work app.
- BlackBerry Messenger is something that the company has continued to build upon over the years, turning it into an even more connected, socially away way to stay up to date with fellow BlackBerry users and friends. In BB10, voice and video calls can be made directly through BBM, negating the need for a standalone app. One cool feature of BBM Video is that you can share your screen with your caller, super helpful for a variety of scenarios.
- BlackBerry Remember is a central storage hub for all kinds of flagged content, messages, photos, videos, etc. Anything you want to come back and view later can now be found in one place instead of having to hunt around through apps and accounts to find it.
- Camera Features The camera features of BlackBerry 10 look pretty simple up front, though you do get a decent amount of editing features out of the box such as tap to focus. There’s also some simple photo editing built into the camera app and controlled via gestures; crop, rotate, enhance, borders and other tweaks can be done with simple gestures. The special feature that BlackBerry is touting with BlackBerry 10 is called “Time Shift” and essentially takes a bunch of pictures at once and then lets you review them in a timescale sort of view to find the best image – great for action shots and anything having to deal with children/pets.
- BlackBerry World Content: What good is a mobile platform these days without good content? Apps/Music/Videos are the big three. BlackBerry has already shown that they can get apps (they’ve announced over 70,000 apps are ready for launch so far). But what about the stuff that keeps people connected and keeps them coming back? At the launch event today, BlackBerry announced that all eight major movie studios and major music labels are providing content for the new BlackBerry platform, though specific studios and labels weren’t named. (Stay tuned for that.)
Overall, BlackBerry has come a long way. They now have a platform that can at least tread water to the bigger players, namely Android and iOS. The goal for BlackBerry now is to quickly refine and add to the new platform. What they have is a great start but it’s certainly going to take a lot more to chip away at Android and iOS’ lead at this point.
