Blackberry Passport Review

[delanyinspiron6400]

Blackberry Passport Review
 
Hey guys, I figured, maybe some of you are interested in a review of the Blackberry Passport, since it is a modern, pretty unique device, from a Canadian handset manufacturer and I think a lot of people would really like it, if they'd try it out!
But first, I want to make a few clarifications, for whom this article could be intresting and for whom not!
 
Would recommend reading it for people, that

• would say, communication is the most important thing when talking about a smartphone
• want something really new and something really different
• need at least one, maybe two days of battery life
• don't depend on certain, very specific apps

Would not recommend reading it for people, that

• absolutely need certain, specific apps, which are only available for iOS or android with google play support
• consider their mobile device not a smartphone, but an multimedia phone
• game more on their phone than communicate

Now that we've that out of the way and you're still reading, either because you are part of those people, that fit the first profile or simply out of curiosity, I'll hope it's going to be

as informative and helpful as possible! I'll spend some time talking about the hardware in this phone, about the current software release, which is Blackberry 10.3.0 on the Passport

and my personal experience and usecases for this phone!

I'll also add, that in the past, I've used the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, HTC One M7, HTC One M8, Iphone 5s, Blackberry Q10, Z10 and previous models, so I'll compare my experience with those smartphones 

as well!

 

Hardware

The Passport uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 Pro clocked at 2.2 Ghz and an Adreno 330 GPU clocked at 450 Mhz, those are, comparing it to previous Blackberry smartphones, really good specs,

which clearly show in day to day usage, I've never encountered hickups or any slow downs, even with 12 Apps running at the same time, thanks to the 3GBs of RAM. 

The screen itself is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, at 1440x1440 Pixels and 4.5 Inches across, this is equivalent to 453 PPI, a really clear and crisp screen and really bright, even in direct sunlight,

I also like the colors a lot, they are little more sublte than the Q10 (which had an AMOLED-screen), this device uses a LCD-screen. 

 

The battery itself is huge, coming in at 3450 mAhs, they claim up to 440 hours of standby time, 18-23 hours of talking time, 84 hours of music playback and 12 hours of video playback, I personally can't deny 

nor confirm those numbers, because I simply haven't tried to do any of those, but I can certainly say, that, concerning battery life, it is the best device I have ever used by far, I normally struggle with other devices

to make it through the day, but with this I nearly got two days out of it once, which makes it at least 50-100 percent better than my previous smartphones, especially compared to the One M8 and Iphone 5s the

battery life is way better!

 

 

On the back, you can find a 13 MP camera with OIS, which is certainly the best on a blackberry phone yet, but I can't comment on the quality of the photos too much, for anything sophisticated I use my Canon DSLR

and for my typical smartphone photos I found the camera to be really good, the camera app opens quickly and it supports recording with 60fps at 1080p, but no 4K at this point in time at least, but that'S not really

a concern for me personally. It does offer some cool features though, time shift allows you to take multiple photos a the same time and then take best one (where eyes are open, stuff like that), and the typical

HDR mode, burst mode and panorama mode!

 

One the back you also find the SIM-slot and the slot for the SD cards, I don't know which sizes are supported to be honest, but I currently have a 64 GB SanDisk card in there, which works just fine!

 

 

One the front, you'll find an iconic blackberry keyboard, which now is also touch-sensitive and can be used for scrolling and flicking words to the screen, I'll talk more

about my experience with this keyboard in a later section. 

Speakers are bottom facing, but are one of the best I've ever heard, there are comparison videos on the internet, comparing it to the HTC One M8, and they are as clear and loud and I really like them!

 

The front facing camera is a 5 MP one, which I haven't used until now, so I can'T comment on its quality! Right next to it, is an RGB LED, which I really like and in it alone is a feature, which hinders me

from ever using an iOS device, if a front facing LED is not supported, it can blink in different colors depending on the type of alert and is really bright and clear to see. 

 

 

 

Software

 

Okay, now coming the the best feature about the newest blackberry devices in my opinion, the Blackberry 10 OS. 

I don't want to bore you with the technical details, but for those interested, in my opinion it is the most interesting mobile operating system out there, based on the QNX micro kernel, which is a

unix-like real-time operating system, which uses a micro kernel for increased stability and the kernel contains only CPU scheduling, interprocess communication, interrupt redirection and a few

timers, everything else is run as a user process which makes it nearly impossible to force the shutdown or reboot of the system. It is commonly used in industrial computing, also nuclear power plants

and hospitals, where safe and time-critical operation is necessary. 

Blackberry 10 builds upon this micro kernel architecture, which allows it to be a heavily multitasking and flexibel OS and it supports development of apps in C, C++, Java, HTML5 and C#. 

 

The core experience rallies around the HUB, which is the central messaging place which can always be reached from anywhere with a simple gesture, swip up and to the right to access the HUB.

The whole user experience is based around gestures, which can be a little off-putting at first for completely new users, but for experienced users it is a neat feature, which will be missed, when

switching to another device for certain. 

The main gestures are swipe down for the menu (when done on the homescreen, it bring the quick access bar down, in apps it brings the app specific menu down), swipe down with two fingers

lets you access the Quick access toggles from anywhere, swipe up is called the Peek, because it semi-minimizes the running app and shows you notifications on the right side of the screen. 

If you do not let go and swipe to the right, you'll end up in the HUB, from wherever you are at the moment. 

 

The OS favours multitasking a lot and has, in my opinion, the best multitasking implementation on the market, apps normally run in active frames, which can display information about the app, 

similar to widgets on android, but a lot more powerful, as of the latest iterations apps can also run in the background, if so desired, this needs an additional check from Blackberry though for 

the app developer. 

 

The HUB acts as a notification center and can contain all social accounts in one place, just my personal use-case here, I have my text messages, BBM messages, What'sapp messages, Facebook

messages, twitter messages, my 4 Email accounts, calls, general notifications and voicemail in there. 

This makes looking through new notifications a bliss and it really is amazing to use and amazingly fast to use. 

 

As of 10.3 there is also support for Blackberry Blend, which is a desktop client for Windows and MacOs users, which communicates with the device, if they are connected on the same WIFI-network

and allows the user to send text messages, emails, BBM messages and files to or through their phone, which is pretty neat. 

 

There is also support for the Android runtime layer, which at this point supports Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and below.

 

 

Personal Experience

 

So in this chapter I would like to describe to you my personal experience with this device and why I "still" use a Blackberry device and not some device from the Android or iOs side of the market. 

I'll divide this into two sections, why Blackberry and why the Passport!

I am a student of "Information&Computer Engineering" at the technical university in Graz, Austria, my main interests therefore are in the mobile market and are always innovation driven and my days

are sometimes really long, because of work at the university and I mostly leave the house at 7 AM in the morning and come home at 9 PM in the evening. I used my phone mainly for communication, 

keeping in touch with my girlfriend, family and friends, talking with students or professors on the phone or sending emails to people I'm working with, and staying organized and looking up information

on the go in my device!

Games and watching movies or stuff like that is not that important to me, for stuff like that I'd rather use my gaming PC at home.

 

 

Why Blackberry 10

 

The killer feature for me personally is something, that you can only experience, and that is ease of use and how quick you get things done! I'm mostly in situations, where I need to reply as quick as possible to

an email or make a calender entry and put the phone away as fast as possible. This is not only sometimes required, but I also like, that I don't need to spend too much time with my phone and in comparison

to my previous devices, which weren't running a version of Blackberry 10, all of those "simple" tasks seemed always more difficult, than they needed to be. 

On Blackberry 10 I lift up my device from the table, which automatically turns on the screen, swipe to get to  my messages, type very fast on the keyboard without the need to look, because of the haptic feedback,

swipe up again to close everything and put the device down, to concentrate on the tasks I'm doing at the moment! The calender application is really awesome and is so fast to use, I really love it!

When equipped with a hardware keyboard, you can simply start typing and the universal search opens, which let's you search through your device or the internet, without the need to open apps, simply start typing!

The multitasking is also a feature, which works so much better, it is really easy to compose an email, while looking up information on the internet, there is now even an app for the passport, which let'S you do those things

side by side, which makes it even faster!

The browser is one of the fastest on the market, compared to the stock iOS and Android alternatives and can run flash content and has one of the best supports for HTML5.

 

Why the Blackberry Passport

 

I've to admit, it is a huge phone, it is really wide, which can be uncomfortable for some people with really small hands! My hands are normal sized and I thought, I would have problems with the device,

but it is just a matter of getting accustomed to this new form factor. 

Admittelty, it's not that easy to use with one hand, because you nearly cannot reach the other end of the device, but I had the same problems with other 5 Inch devices, most of the time you are going to use

both hands to operate the phone. 

The keyboard is amazing, it feels really nice, and the touch-sensitivity brings so much features to this device, scrolling through pages, flicking up auto-suggested words while typing, erasing words by swiping to the left,

swiping down to bring up extra characters, this is the most innovative way to communicate I've encountered in a long time! You can also type while looking away after some practise, which makes this awesome for me.

The huge screen in this odd form-factor is really nice for reading and writing and I really love it!

The battery life is unmatched for me personally and beats my own expectations that I require in a phone.

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Okay, I hope this post made the Blackberry Passport more attractive to you and if you want to know more, simply ask in the comments below, I'll happily reply

This device obviously isn'T for everyone, it is unique and looks pretty cool, but in an odd way. It is huge and still has a physical keyboard!

But even if that is not for you, maybe some other Blackberry 10 offering is for you, because I truly believe that this is the most advanced mobile Os out there,

and even if it does not bring you exactly the same app support as Android and iOS do, it is simply a workhorse that can take a beating and work the whole day

without needing to charge!

 

Hope you liked it

 

[ZetZet]

I saw Erica Griffin reviewed this one, noticed how bad  the camera is and was pretty much done.  :lol: Also physical keyboard is more useless than useful for most people nowadays, especially those who got used to swype typing.

[AlwaysFSX]

I like this phone! Great review.

[delanyinspiron6400]

I saw Erica Griffin reviewed this one, noticed how bad  the camera is and was pretty much done.  :lol: Also physical keyboard is more useless than useful for most people nowadays, especially those who got used to swype typing.

As I said, I can't speak too much about the camera, but I certainly wouldn't call it bad, it's not in the Top 3 smartphone cameras by any stretch of the imagination, but it is far from bad I would argue!

 

Yeah, I understand that it's not for most people, but I also see a lot of people, who loved their physical keyboards back then and aren't happy with the touch options available and I am happy that there are options for people like that

and people like me.

I can tell you, as much as virtual keyboards have improved, and I've run Swift Key on my android devices and the stock iphone keyboard, but you can't type without looking, because you have no point of reference and I simply

like to feel an error before I see it.

 

But yeah, certainly this phone isn't for "most" people!

[nicehat]

Great review, you put in alot of effort. You might also want to mention that because of its 1:1 aspect ratio, reading text documents, working on spread sheets, and general reading text is really, easy on the eyes.

[soaringchicken]

If I could afford more than one phone, this would definitely be useful to me, at least as a secondary driver. Very detailed/great review, thanks! I'd given up on blackberry before this

 

I also just noticed it's not available in Australia so

 

Actually it is! But it's $700

[delanyinspiron6400]

Thanks for your input Yeah, the aspect ratio is really nice, I like it a lot!

[witting]

Is it hard to fit the Passport in your pockets? Also there are some good apps on blackberry world to further customize the notification LED, I recently got one with the free apps for new year and it's so handy.

[nicehat]

Is it hard to fit the Passport in your pockets? Also there are some good apps on blackberry world to further customize the notification LED, I recently got one with the free apps for new year and it's so handy.

 

I dont have the Passport so cant comment on the portability within the standard pocket, but there are apps available to customize the LED colors and notifications. Ive got one on my Q10. 

[deVIZtation]

I dont have the Passport so cant comment on the portability within the standard pocket, but there are apps available to customize the LED colors and notifications. Ive got one on my Q10. 

Same here. I would have gotten the Passport, but I really would have liked a better camera on it.

[delanyinspiron6400]

There are pretty cool apps for that, BeBuzz or Hub++ LED, where you can customize LEDs for individual contacts or general apps, pretty neat! 

To be honest, I find it much more comfortable to put in my pocket than standard 5 inch phones, I like the increased width a lot more than the increased height on 5 inch devices! 

So no problem for me at least!