BlackBerry Passport Review

[ThePointblank]

I'm reviewing a phone that has garnered some controversy over the design style: a BlackBerry Passport. This is my own personal phone that I use as a day to day driver.

 

The BlackBerry Passport is currently BlackBerry's top of the line smart phone. This particular phone that I have is factory unlocked as I did purchase it from Amazon. Currently, it's your only choice if you want a high-end phone with a physical keyboard, and it's the best-performing BlackBerry in the lineup. The technical specs is below (from GSMArena.com):

 

http://www.gsmarena.com/blackberry_passport-6457.php

 

Network  Technology: GSM / HSPA / LTE
Body Dimensions:  128 x 90.3 x 9.3 mm (5.04 x 3.56 x 0.37 in)
Weight:  196 g (6.91 oz)
Keyboard:  QWERTY
SIM:  Nano-SIM
  - Capacitive touch 3-row BlackBerry keyboard
Display  Type:  IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size:  4.5 inches (~56.5% screen-to-body ratio)
Resolution:  1440 x 1440 pixels (~453 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch:  Yes, up to 10 fingers
Protection:  Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Platform  OS:  BlackBerry 10.3 OS
Chipset:  Qualcomm MSM8974AA Snapdragon 801
CPU:  Quad-core 2.26 GHz Krait 400
GPU:  Adreno 330
Memory  Card slot  microSD:, up to 128 GB
Internal:  32 GB, 3 GB RAM
Camera:  Primary  13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, optical image stabilization, LED flash, check quality
Features:  Geo-tagging, face detection, HDR
Video:  1080p@60fps, check quality
Secondary:  2 MP, 720p
Sound:  Alert types  Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
Loudspeaker:  Yes, with stereo speakers
3.5mm jack:  Yes
Comms:  WLAN  Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, hotspot
Bluetooth  v4.0, A2DP, LE
GPS:  Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS
NFC:  Yes
Radio:  FM radio with RDS
USB:  microUSB v2.0 (SlimPort)
Features:

Sensors:  Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
Messaging:  SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM, BBM 6
Browser:  HTML5
Java:  Yes, MIDP 2.1
- BlackBerry Assistant
- BlackBerry maps
- Organizer
- Document viewer
- Photo viewer/editor
- Video editor
- MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+/FlAC player
- DivX/XviD/MP4/WMV/H.264 player
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
Battery:     Non-removable Li-Ion 3450 mAh battery
Stand-by:  Up to 432 h (2G) / Up to 444 h (3G)
Talk time:  Up to 18 h (2G) / Up to 23 h (3G)
Music play:  Up to 84 h

 

First, physical overview, with pictures:

From the front:

Top:

Bottom:

Right side:

Back:

 

Like all BlackBerry's, Passport feels extremely well built. The build quality is excellent and nothing feels flimsy on it. The keyboard is comfortable to use with two hands, the screen is bright and clear and the edges feel solid. The stainless steel edges is a nice touch, and the phone does not have any flex it in at all.

 

As Passport doesn't have a removable battery, the entire back does not come off. Instead, BlackBerry has decided to place the nanoSIM and the micro-SD card slots behind a cover on the top of the phone. The only quibble here is that the cover is not very easy to remove, and for some, you might want small tools available to open it up, but its rare one should need to do this. The back is covered in soft-touch material in the black phones, which feels comfortable, but like all soft-touch plastics, they do wear off.

 

The keyboard, although only 3 rows is actually extremely good; Passport utilizes the display to offer additional virtual keys that change in context with what you're doing on the device. Additionally, the physical keyboard is touch-enabled and can recognize gestures such as swipes up and down to help with navigation through the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

 

There is no mistake about it; this is a BIG phone. At 196g, this is also a fairly hefty phone as well. Most people will find that using two hands is most convenient and comfortable while using the phone. But once you get used to it, it is normal, but you do get a sense that there is a lot of premium quality materials in the phone.

 

While Passport has very powerful hardware behind it (a 2.2 GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, and 3GB of RAM), Passport feels extremely fast and snappy, and that's coming from another BlackBerry 10 device. While the BlackBerry 10 OS doesn't need a whole lot of hardware performance to make it feel fast, the extra power the Passport has in the hardware department makes it feel even faster. This is the first BlackBerry that can actually go head to head with any iPhone or Android handset in terms of gross hardware and specs.

 

The Passport’s display is a 4.5in 1440 x 1440 pixel IPS LCD setup and is the best display BlackBerry has put in one of their phones. The choice of this resolution and aspect ratio, while it does seem odd, makes total sense once you start using the phone for communication; the extra width means more text can be displayed, making reading much easier. The very high resolution from the screen means texts are crisp and there’s no hint of pixilation anywhere. Viewing angles are great too, and the Passport is perfectly readable in direct sunlight.

 

Battery life is excellent. I can start in the morning fully charged, and the phone has barely gone through 30% of the power by the evening, even with making a number of phone calls, reading messages, and using the GPS to get directions. BlackBerry claims 18 hours of talk time with the Passport, and from what I can see, this is achievable.

 

The Passport comes with a charger, which consists of a small brick and a detachable USB to micro-USB cable. The charger is fairly powerful, delivering 5V at 1,300mA, more than my old Z10's charger which delivered 750mA.

 

The camera, a historic weakpoint for BlackBerry, has received a number of upgrades. Passport comes with a 13MP camera with 5-element f2.0 sensor, complete with Optical Image Stabilisation. This is equivalent to other phones out there, and the software driving the phone has received some upgrades and new features as well. The camera for the first time, is competitive with other mainstream phones and is no longer an afterthought.

 

Phone quality: What good is a phone if you can't make decent calls with it? Passport's call quality from my experiences is excellent. Not only can you hear the other person nice and clear, the microphone is also very clear as well. BlackBerry has included that they term as BlackBerry Natural Sound and Active Leak Compensation, which automatically adjusts the call volume based on how close you hold the BlackBerry Passport smartphone to your ear.

 

 

Passport comes pre-loaded with BlackBerry OS 10.3, the latest revision to the BlackBerry 10 OS. It's worth talking about BB10.3 for a bit:

 

BB 10.3 OS is a major update to the BlackBerry 10 OS. It adds a lot of new features, including the following:

- BlackBerry Assistant (A Siri / Google Now / Cortana)

- Amazon App Store integration

- BlackBerry Blend integration

 

BlackBerry Assistant is actually very intelligent. It leverages software developed by Maluuba, another Waterloo, ON technology firm. Assistant offers up such things as searches for restaurants, movies, events, and businesses along with scheduling of alarms, reminders, and meetings as well as voice dialing, texting, and emailing. From initial use, it isn't very easy to stump, and you can speak to it in a natural way. It's smarter from my experiences using an iPhone and Siri.

 

BlackBerry Hub has also received numerous tweaks in 10.3, all of which makes communication easier. From things like speed triage, which allows you to pre-select two functions (such as reply or delete) once you hover over a message or just come out of one, and being able to send plain text or HTML e-mails are the most notable.

 

Universal Search has also been upgraded as well; once you start typing, the phone automatically goes into search mode, and will look for everything related to your query that is on your phone from contacts, emails, videos, notes, and pictures as well as links to things like BlackBerry World, Twitter, Google and Bing.

 

BlackBerry 10.3 also adds advanced interaction features as well; for example, have advanced interaction enabled in the settings and you can lay your phone done face down and the phone's profile will change to silent mode, perfect for when you are in a meeting or going to bed.

 

Calendar has also received some updates as well; there is a dark background available, plus if you have a meeting scheduled on your phone, you can have your phone automatically go into silent mode once your meeting starts and exit silent mode once your meeting is scheduled to end.

 

Another new feature is BlackBerry Blend. BlackBerry Blend lets you pick up texts and emails from your BlackBerry on a PC or Mac and it works over Wi-Fi, Mobile Data and via USB, meaning you can be on the other side of the world and, providing you BlackBerry is switched on, pick up emails and texts from your phone, tablet, or on a PC with Blend installed. You can use Blend to send e-mails, texts and BBM messages from any device on your BlackBerry, and also locally attach files as well. Blend is a free download, and incurs no subscription or residual fees. There are also no ads to deal with. The software is still under continuous development, so more enhancements are very likely forthcoming from BlackBerry.

 

Finally, to address the lack thereof apps available on the BlackBerry App World, BlackBerry has saw fit to have the Amazon App store and its catalogue of Android apps made available as well. Granted, not all Amazon Apps are available, but it does improve on the offerings available. Finally, one can always install Android apps directly from the BAR files, which is as simple as uploading the BAR file to the phone, either through USB or WiFi, or downloading it off a site from the phone and opening the BAR file.

 

The End Verdict: Is this phone for everyone? Nope. But is this a good smartphone. It does take a bit to get used to how different the phone feels, but once you’ve accustomed yourself, it totally feels natural and fast. Passport is available in Black, White, a limited edition Red, and a very limited edition Black and Gold version (now since sold out) as well.