BlackBerry Priv: Initial Review

[Omon_Ra]

Disclaimer: I am a long-time BlackBerry user, since 2006 or so (see pic below). This is my first smartphone that is not a BBOS. I have some experience with Android, I have it dual-booting on my HP TouchPad (I also seem to have a penchant for doomed/failed tech devices) though I rarely use it. I've only spent about 24 hours with the Priv so far now, I will update after a week or so. Apologies for the mediocre photography, I don't have great lighting indoors, and outside is covered in pollen. The pics may get updated, and I'll add pics taken with the Priv later as well.

 

Spoiler

My BlackBerry history:

 

 

The BlackBerry Priv. A lot of yall probably didn't even know BlackBerry was still in the hardware business, and by their last several years of smartphone releases, it seems like they themselves didn't know they were in the hardware business. Finally, BlackBerry have released a device that can keep up with the rest of the pack. Currently the Priv is running Android Lollipop, but Marshmallow should be coming end of April/early March. Before I get into the details, specs:

 

SPECS:

Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 (msm8892)

Dimensions: Height - 147mm/5.79in (184mm/7.24in open); Width - 77.2mm/3.04in; Thickness - 9.4mm/0.37

Weight: 6.77oz

Screen: 5.43in, 2560x1440, 540PPI, Corning Gorilla Glass 4

Battery: 3410mAh (non-removable)

OS: Android Lollipop

Storage: 32GB on-board, up to 2TB microSD card support

Camera: Schneider-Kreuznach certified, f2.2, 18MP rear; 2MP fixed-focus, f2.8 front

 

 

HARDWARE:

The single most identifiable part of any BlackBerry smartphone is the keyboard. It's what has kept me with the brand for as long as I have. The slide-out keyboard on the Priv is an adjustment, like anytime I got a new BlackBerry, but the fact it's crammed into a slider that looks no bigger than a typical Android slab is quite frankly a bit mind boggling. The thinness of the keyboard part when it is open at first felt a little concerning, but it strangely feels more secure when you're typing and all 7.24 inches are extended (hehe). They have added the touch-sensitivity to the keyboard, making the whole thing a giant trackpad; great for scrolling without putting a hand on the screen, selecting text, etc. The slider mechanism is very smooth with enough resistance opening and closing that accidental movements shouldn't open/close it. I am interested to see how well it holds up after the summer, as I live at the beach and there will be a lot of sand in/around it. Two hands are almost required to handle the device when fully opened; I say almost because it's really quite balanced and if you're using the keyboard for scrolling, your thumb presses it into your hand, making it feel more secure. 

 

 

Aside from the keyboard, the rest of the device feels great in the hand. The screen is a curved affair, which aside from looking pretty, has a few additional functionalities. When charging, one edge will show the battery status. There is a 'peek' option, where you can swipe in from the edge and show you some basic info from your calendar, Hub (more on that later), tasks or contacts. The peek function has all sorts of customization (or you can get rid of it completely) and is pretty handy. I'm sure there may be more features utilizing the edge, but that's all I've found so far. The speaker is on the 'chin' of the device. It gets quite loud, but I rarely use speakerphone or the phone as a music player itself (usually use external speakers) so it really doesn't matter much to me.

 

 

The buttons have a nice click, though the feel for the volume up, down and middle play/pause button on the right side could have more definition. They kind of all feel the same, even though the middle one is substantially smaller. The power/lock button is on the left side and flatter than its partners on the right side, but I have no problems locking/unlocking the device. The top of the device has the microSD slot and the SIM card slot. They are separate from each other and the Priv does come with a tool to remove them. On the bottom is the microUSB port and the headphone jack. This is probably my least favorite side of the Priv. One, why they didn't go with USB type-C is beyond me. Two, I hate headphone jacks on the bottom of devices. The back is a similar glass-weave material to the Q10 and other BB10 devices, with a matte, almost satin-y feel that is quite slip-proof. The camera does protrude from the back, but the lens itself does seem to be recessed from the lip of the 'bump,' which seems to bode well for those concerned with scratched lenses. I usually keep my phone screen-side down when on a table anyways, so this isn't a big deal for me. There is also a dual color LED flash, how well that works is to be decided.

 

 

Side thickness comparison between Priv (left) and Q10 (right), and you can see the camera bump

 

SOFTWARE:

 

***This is where things get a little dicey for me. For one, I don't know what a 'vanilla' Android experience really should be, and I also don't have a lot of Android experience at all. Some of the gripes may be with Android and how it works, and some may be BlackBerry's changes; since I have nothing to compare it to, please correct me where I'm wrong.***

 

As far as I can tell, it seems like a pretty stock Android device. BlackBerry has added some features, like the aforementioned 'peek' but the big one for me is the Hub. That was my favorite part of BB10; it integrated all of your notifications (SMS, email, calendar, facebook, twitter, any app with notifications really) into one place and made dealing with notifications insanely easy. It still sort of exists on the Priv, though it definitely leaves a lot to be desired. You can quick-launch it by swiping up and right (similar to how you accessed it on BB10) and there your SMS, email and certain other apps will have their notifications. The biggest gripe I have now though is I can't set custom LED colors, vibrate patterns or sounds for specific accounts. On my Q10 I had SMS as a certain vibrate pattern, ringtone and LED color, then a different pattern for each of my email accounts. I could either feel or look at my phone and tell what the notification was. The 'priority' contacts and messages is gone in the Hub, which I really liked in BB10. I do like the customization options for the swipes on messages. I have it setup to swipe left and delete (you can still select on device or on device and server thank god) and swipe right to mark as read.

 

Another BlackBerry tweak is the way they implement widgets. Any app that has a widget will show up with three dots below the icon. You can swipe up or down and, on first launch, will give you the app's widget options; afterwards it will open to that specific widget when you swipe up/down on the app icon. Kind of cool, but pretty much useless; I disabled them on all the apps aside from VLC and the Calendar.

 

The Notification drawer works fine, I don't have any issues with it, but it's nothing that crazy. I do like the access to the wifi, flashlight, etc settings. They've kept the two-finger-swipe-from-the-top gesture from BB10 to open up the quick settings which is great.

 

I'll probably have more to add here over the next few days.

 

Final Thoughts:

So after a day with the Priv, I'm really liking it. It's massive compared to my Q10, and that is taking some getting used to. While I could sideload Android APK's onto my Q10, it's nice to finally have a 'real' app marketplace. The only real problems I'm having is just adjusting to Android. The stock photos app is pretty terrible, there was no stock file browser and EVERYTHING wants to sync and talk to the cloud. Battery life has been great so far, since I took it off the charger around 4pm yesterday, I'm now at 48%. It did seem to warm up a bit while charging, but it may have also been due to the fact I was updating/downloading a lot of apps. If you're in the market for a new Android device, I would definitely give it a look. Don't let a bad experience with a Storm, Torch or other older BlackBerry cloud your judgement. Pick one up and try it out; especially if you're missing that physical keyboard. I'm sure there's some stuff I've missed, and I will be coming back to update after a week or so. If anyone has specific questions (or some solutions to some of my problems) about the Priv, fire away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Uber Hamburgler]

Why is it that you dislike headphone jacks on the bottom?  I prefer it that way, makes for a more natural movement to put the phone in my pocket.

[Omon_Ra]

3 hours ago, Uber Hamburgler said:

Why is it that you dislike headphone jacks on the bottom?  I prefer it that way, makes for a more natural movement to put the phone in my pocket.

I haven't finished my, after-some-time review but I was going to address this. Most of the time I have something plugged into the headphone jack it's going to an AUX in on my car's head unit or a home speaker system. I rarely, if ever, use actual headphones with my phone. When the headphone jack is on the bottom, you can't sit the phone vertically (like in a cup holder) without it putting stress on the jack/plug or the device being upside down. Not to mention trying to hold the device with a plug sticking out of the bottom where your hands should go is annoying as well. I did notice that I am usually putting the phone in my pocket 'upside down' (the bottom of the phone closer to the top of the pocket) whereas all my other Blackberries I've put in my pocket 'right side up,' so if I did wear headphones with my phone in my pocket it wouldn't be that annoying. I understand why they placed it where it is, there isn't enough room at the top of the device for the 3.5mm plug, but it's not really ideal for my use.

[Scruffy90]

I really wanted to like the Blackberry Priv. I really did, but a few issues killed it for me.

 

-Crappy signal strength (was averaging 1 to 2 bars max)

-Battery life sucks. I moved everything that was on my g4 to the BBP and it died in a third of the time.

-Not all sms/messaging apps support pressing enter on the keyboard to send.

-Shoddy back cover.

[Omon_Ra]

4 hours ago, Scruffy90 said:

I really wanted to like the Blackberry Priv. I really did, but a few issues killed it for me.

 

-Crappy signal strength (was averaging 1 to 2 bars max)

-Battery life sucks. I moved everything that was on my g4 to the BBP and it died in a third of the time.

-Not all sms/messaging apps support pressing enter on the keyboard to send.

-Shoddy back cover.

 

Coverage has been great for Verizon, though the WiFi range is a bit lacking compared to my Q10, and the handover when on the edge of a WiFi network to the carrier network is significantly worse than on my Q10. Battery life has been better than I had anticipated. I was hoping for a full day without having to charge, but I only have to charge it every other night. I do know a lot of people on the Crackberry forums are having serious battery drain/heating up issues, but I guess I got lucky. I HATE that the keyboard enter doesn't send a message. I've already had several texts that were never sent because I still instinctively hit 'enter' then close the app. I can see how people don't like the back cover; I personally like it. Grippy, not a fingerprint magnet, and mine isn't 'squishy' like I've heard some complain about. I may have just lucked out with my device. I'm a regular visitor to the Crackberry forums, and when there are a lot of people there that can't sort out hardware issues, battery drains and the like, it's an issue your average customer will just return and get a new phone. I keep thinking BlackBerry will finally get their shit together, but each time there's glimmers of awesome interrupted by half-assedness, short-sightedness or just out right arrogance. I think people should still give it a look/try, after all you can return it, but for me, I need a physical keyboard, and it's the only legitimate option.

 

I'll have the rest of the review up maybe tomorrow.. To be honest, I noticed there's not a lot of interest in it, so I wasn't too focused on it.

[Scruffy90]

7 minutes ago, Omon_Ra said:

 

Coverage has been great for Verizon and battery life has been better than I had anticipated. I was hoping for a full day without having to charge, but I only have to charge it every other night. I do know a lot of people on the Crackberry forums are having serious battery drain/heating up issues, but I guess I got lucky. I HATE that the keyboard enter doesn't send a message. I've already had several texts that were never sent because I still instinctively hit 'enter' then close the app. I can see how people don't like the back cover; I personally like it. Grippy, not a fingerprint magnet, and mine isn't 'squishy' like I've heard some complain about. I may have just lucked out with my device. I'm a regular visitor to the Crackberry forums, and when there are a lot of people there that can't sort out hardware issues, battery drains and the like, it's an issue your average customer will just return and get a new phone. I keep thinking BlackBerry will finally get their shit together, but each time there's glimmers of awesome interrupted by half-assedness, short-sightedness or just out right arrogance. I think people should still give it a look/try, after all you can return it, but for me, I need a physical keyboard, and it's the only legitimate option.

 

I'll have the rest of the review up maybe tomorrow or so. To be honest, I noticed there's not a lot of interest in it, so I wasn't too focused on it.

I think. A lot of the issues are centered around the STV0001 model which I believe ATT and T-Mobile as well as the Intl unlocked versions are (I had the T-Mobile one).

 

The antenna issue is due to them not using the Qualcomm antenna and using the Parrot antenna like they used on their other Intl BB.

 

The battery issue was being caused by the phone always trying to find a connection and the antenna being active almost 24/7 (wish I would've taken screenshots of this before returning the device).

 

I agree that those that wanted a physical keyboard should give it a try. It's been a very very long time since we had a high tiered phone with a physical keyboard. I liked the physical keyboard to (loved the swipe gestures). I just wish that the keys were spaced out just a tad bit more vertically.

 

If blackberry could release an updated phone that fixed these issues at a more reasonable price (this has been rumored for a while), I'd give them my money again, but only if they keep the higher end specs. I don't want yet another mid or low tiered phone with a physical kb

[Omon_Ra]

12 minutes ago, Scruffy90 said:

-snip-

 

Oh yeah, the keyboard definitely needs like 1-2mm between the keyboard and the bottom of the screen. That's where I'm having the biggest problems, but I've gotten pretty used to it now.

 

I wanted to get an unlocked device direct from BBRY, as they guarantee monthly security patches for those devices; however Big Red has better coverage where I live and I've been with them for a while. $30/month for 2 years is a bit easier to stomach than $700 upfront for a device that should have retailed ~$500. Even John Chen has said that the price point the Priv was released at was a mistake.

 

There's still a fair amount of battery drain/heat issues with the Verizon Priv as well; though I think a lot of it was due to people getting new phones and loading all the new apps. Between the installations and all of the new data the apps are trying to pull, it would make sense the device would get pretty toasty and drain the battery if it's not plugged in. I know mine during setup got quite warm. If I have a bunch of tabs open in Firefox it will start to get a little warm, but nothing alarming. Either way, it seems to be pretty bad testing/QC from Blackberry...which is the last thing they need.

 

The word is there are two more 'mid-tier' Android-powered Blackberries coming soon. I believe one will be fully touch, the other with a physical keyboard. I'm not sure of the specs, but they really need to nail the price:performance ratio. They really need to work on the battery life too. That was ALWAYS a selling point of Blackberries.

[Uber Hamburgler]

On 4/14/2016 at 6:57 PM, Omon_Ra said:

I haven't finished my, after-some-time review but I was going to address this. Most of the time I have something plugged into the headphone jack it's going to an AUX in on my car's head unit or a home speaker system. I rarely, if ever, use actual headphones with my phone. When the headphone jack is on the bottom, you can't sit the phone vertically (like in a cup holder) without it putting stress on the jack/plug or the device ...

That's a good point.  Perhaps remedied with a cable with a right angle connection?