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BlackBerry Q10 review

Blackberry
7/10
WIRED RATING


WIRED Very sharp screen, excellent QWERTY keyboard, solid build quality, good battery life TIRED OS learning curve, not a lot in the BlackBerry World app store, no Google Maps, no bargain PRICE £530

Blackberry Once upon a time, BlackBerry distinguished itself by having just about the best physical keyboard you could find on a phone. Nowadays, it's very nearly the only one, as most smartphones eschew them completely in favour of more versatile full-face screens. So is there still a place for BlackBerry's USP?
The BlackBerry Q10 is on sale now for around £530. 
Design and features
Following on the heels of the full-screen Z10 with its revamped BlackBerry 10 operating system, the Q10 sees a return to more traditional BlackBerry styling, with Qwerty keyboard beneath the touchscreen, while on the sides are a volume rocker, microUSB and micro HDMI ports, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack and power/sleep button on top (no convenience key though).

So far, so BlackBerry. But there are differences: the optical trackpad has gone and navigation is now totally reliant on the touchscreen with additional swiping options provided by BB10 (actually 10.1 in this case, an evolution of the OS we first saw on the Z10).
Swiping from right to left allows you to scroll through the various home pages of course. But sliding down from the top offers settings or notifications and sliding up from the bottom takes you out of the application you're in and gives you an overview of other open applications.
Other innovations include the Universal Search function. This is incredibly easy to access -- just start typing from the home screen and you're in, with the ability to search files, messages, contacts, settings, BBM, Twitter, Facebook and help.
Swiping to the right from the home page brings you to Type and Go -- start typing a message and then you can decide whether to send a text, email, BBM, Facebook, Twitter or even LinkedIn message. It's a very neat system and helps make the BlackBerry a rather excellent communicator, once you've climbed the learning curve to get used to its ways.
For business users, there's also BlackBerry Balance, which offers a choice of two completely separate interfaces for home and for work -- data held within each interface is inaccessible from the other, which adds an extra level of security.

Keyboard
And so to the keyboard. Many have abandoned reliance on hard-button Qwerty keyboards in favour of advanced touchscreen versions. But for high-speed, reliable typing there's nothing quite like it and BlackBerry has done well not to fix one of the few things about its technology that's never been broken by rivals' innovations.
There's a confidence to typing on a keyboard with hard keys that inevitably leads to fewer mistakes, and as ever, the angled BlackBerry keys feel just right under the thumbs and offer just the right amount of feedback.
The permanent shortcuts are handy -- backspace to delete a message, or "W" to flag a message, arguably saves a little time and effort than pressing and holding or swiping. Auto-correction and word prediction are very good overall too, with suggested words appearing at the bottom of the screen as you type -- you just tap on one when you're ready. All in all, it's a great device for sending messages.
The 3.1-inch Super Amoled touchscreen offers a resolution of 720x720 pixels, which may not sound that great, but it breaks down to 320 pixels per inch, which puts it ever so slightly ahead of the iPhone 5's Retina display. It's small, but beautiful, with deep blacks, rich contrast and vivid colours, not to mention super sharp detail, especially with small print.
The browser works surprisingly well on the half-size screen too. It feels like it ought to be the wrong shape for browsing, but it generally displays well and the Reader mode (get it from the menu, or simply press "R") resizes pages to make them more like an ebook, which occasionally comes in handy.

Blackberry Performance and apps
It's fast too. The 1.5GHz dual-core processor is backed by a full 2GB RAM and there was no discernable lag when flitting between apps. There's 16GB of memory on board and you can boost that by a further 32GB with a microSD card, which you'll need to remove the battery to insert.

The eight-megapixel camera comes with a large F2.2 lens and a dedicated ISP (image signal processor). There aren't many settings to fiddle with, but it has HDR, geotagging, face detection and the option to switch aspect ratio between 1:1, 4:3 and 16:9, so you aren't stuck with the square ratio that the screen suggests.

Picture quality is pretty good, with a decent level of detail and accurate colours, though they can quickly look a little washed out if you aren't careful with your light. It can handle 1,080p full HD video recording and there's also a 2-megapixel camera on the front for video calls. It can shoot 720p HD video and unusually, comes with a 3x digital zoom.
NFC's on board for mobile payments or use with Smart Tags, though bizarrely it doesn't support wireless charging, and there's 4G futureproofing, though of course you won't feel on the online speed benefit unless you're on EE.
The BlackBerry World app store is way behind its Apple and Android rivals (BB claims 100,000, though they're of very variable quality, and why would you want to pay for Angry Birds?), though many of the essentials are here, either natively, or ported from Android. Facebook and Twitter seem likely candidates as ported apps and work perfectly well, but there is a danger that not all apps will be ported as successfully as the originals on Google Play or Apple's App Store.
The battery held up very well indeed, delivering two full days of fairly heavy use, which puts it ahead of most smartphones in its class.

Conclusion BlackBerry may be in trouble, but it's not going out without a fight. Its USPs may have been largely eroded by its rivals, but it still offers additional security options for business users, and the BB10 OS is smoother and more efficient than its predecessor, helped by strong battery life and a speedy processor. Lack of apps in BlackBerry World is a shame, but its messaging and networking capabilities are strong, and if you feel the need for a hard keyboard, there's really only one to get excited about.

SPECIFICATIONS
Software
BlackBerry 10.1

Processor
Dual-core 1.5GHz

Memory slot
Yes

Display
3.1in touchscreen 720x720 pixels

Connectivity
Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0

Ports
microUSB, 3.5mm headphone jack, microHDMI

Camera
8 megapixel camera with auto focus, LEDflash; 2 megapixel front-facing camera

Video playback
3GP, 3GP2, M4A,M4V, MOV, MP4, MKV, MPEG-4, AVI, ASF, WMV

Audio playback
WMA, MP3, MKA, AAC, AMR, F4V,WAV, MP2PS, MP2TS, AWB, OGG, FLAC

Radio
No

Battery
2,100mAh

Size
120x67x10mm

Weight 139g
Picture
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