article

REVIEW blackberry z10@ nytimes.com

by David Pogue

[WHAT]

publisher: nytimes.com - a major daily newspaper in New York City,USA circulation = massive
author: David Pogue - is the tech editor for this paper,

[WHY]

] PROs -

] "fast and efficient, bristling with fresh, useful ideas."
] "complete - a well-stocked app store, a music and movie store, Mac and Windows software for loading files, speech recognition, turn-by-turn navigation, parental controls, copy and paste, Find My Phone (with remote-control lock and erase) and on and on."
] "BlackBerry 10’s ideas are truly ingenious. A subtle light blinks above the screen to indicate that something — a text, an e-mail message, voice mail, a Facebook post — is waiting for you. Without even pressing a physical button, you swipe up the screen; the Lock screen lifts like a drape as you slide your thumb, revealing what’s underneath. It’s fast and cool."
] "BlackBerry has come up with a mind-bogglingly clever typing system."
] "The camera software is terrific."
] "solves a huge problem for corporate techies: how to keep employees’ work phones secure in a world where people also use their phones for personal things. If a company has BlackBerry’s corporate software suite, separate worlds can be created on each phone: personal and work, with distinct calendars, address books, wallpaper and even app collections."
] "(BBM) service now lets you make free phone calls and video calls over the Internet. You can even screencast (share screen)"
] NFC (near-field communication), you can shoot a photo, map, Web page, app, file or song to another BlackBerry 10 owner(NFC enabled smartphone), wirelessly, on the spot. Other phones do NFC sharing, but rarely as simply.

[WHY NOT]

]CONs

] Siri-like assistant - but it’s slower, less accurate and far narrower in scope.
] You can also speak to type, but the accuracy is so bad, you won’t use it
] When you’ve used the faux Siri to dictate a message or e-mail, you can’t edit it, even manually.
] he usual Achilles’ heel for a new type of smartphone is the apps. Most of the big-name apps are already there (Skype, Yelp, Twitter, Spotify, Foursquare, Dropbox, Angry Birds and so on), but a few important ones are still missing: Netflix, Draw Something, Pinterest, Hipstamatic, Instagram and most airline and bank apps.
] no physical silencer switch (only a software function).
] In the Mail app, you can’t move from one message to the next without returning to the in-box in between.
] The calendar views don’t rotate when you turn the phone, and you can’t drag appointments to reschedule them.
] And the battery barely makes it through a day

[WHERE]

]

[WHEN]

] review published 2013-01-30

[EXAMPLE]

]

[HOW-TO]

]

[REFERENCE]

] read the entire review

] by David Pogue- Blackberry Z10 Review - @nytimes.com -

] back to our overview article

] blackberry-10-operating-system-overview

]

[COMMENTS]

PaulBerkeley

Random thought: I live in the Bay Area and Barry Zito, the lefty pitcher for the SF Giants baseball club, had a super come-back last year after losing his mojo and apparenlty his pitching skill for a long period. But now all is forgiven as he posted a great record in 2012 and won a critical World Series game. Soooo, BlackBerry should engage Mr. Barry Zito as a spokesperson for the BlackBerry Z10: both are back, both are humming, and both have a great narrative to share at this time. Just a random thought....

Jan. 31, 2013 at 11:50 p.m

Creekview AlSan Diego

How about the idea that the existing corporate IT. Servers won't handle the new one? And visa -versa. That should calm down corporate enthusiasm a little or perhaps keeping up two sets of hardware for the 80 milion old ones and the dozen new ones looks attractive?

Jan. 31, 2013 at 2:46 p.m

A EdouardMontreal

Happy that Blackberry may have a new lease on life, but this review of Mr. Pogue is overly enthusiastic about the OS and devices. Some glaring flaws that were omitted :

OS:

- The App store includes a lot of Android apps (not ports, actual Android apps) and those apps run on an emulator, and badly (based on Android Gingerbread, so three versions ago).

- The social hub has its flaws. It presents the actual message instead of a quick glance at the message, making the navigation tedious.

- The OS isn't really intuitive

Devices (Z10):

- The battery life, from thorough reviews at Engadget and The Verge, is disappointing. Smaller than recent flagship Android phones and much smaller than the iPhone 5. That's a big flaw.

- Specs wise, it's behind the recent Android phones and the iPhone. It runs on a CPU (GPU) that was popular a year ago, and that is much less powerful than what you see in new devices from competitors. It's not the end of the world, but the Z10 won't be the gaming machine the iPhone is. I know it's not a big focus of Blackberry, but they do talk it up.

Blackberry released a good OS and good devices, but let's not have rose-tinted glasses here.

Jan. 31, 2013 at 10:17 a.m

HJFNY

David, here's an old fashioned question: how come no mention in your review about how the new BB works as a PHONE? Given that most smartphones have lousy sound quality, I'm curious if RIMM paid any attention to this feature. Also, no Google maps? Then what are they offering and is it useful?

Jan. 31, 2013 at 10:17 a.m.RECOMMENDED1

A EdouardMontreal

The map app is bad (worse than Apple maps bad) and this is a pretty big weak point. Strange that he didn't address it. On an iPhone the Apple maps is still OK, and you can download the great new Google Maps app on the App Store.

This review was strangely optimistic. He must really like the device despite its flaws, which I guess is a good thing. Plus, I'm rooting for Blackberry to succeed, as competition is good, and I don't really like Android as a platform. And really, nobody can come out of the gate with a great ecosystem, great devices, perfect OS. It's really impossible. But this is a good restart from Blackberry.

Jan. 31, 2013 at 12:55 p.m.

TylerNYC

Some people might decide to count Blackberrry out of the smartphone race due to issues that have plagued their brand in the past - things like their major decline in market share, "outdated" technology, and lack of apps. But looking only to the past is lazy and it is exactly how RIM almost sunk their own ship.

RIM was obviously complacent with respect to iPhone and Android - they were asleep at the switch and failed to immediately recognize/acknowledge/respond to the advantages that these two platforms had over their own.

But the past is yesterday, BB10 is today. The fact is that the Blackberry user experience is now on-par with iPhone and Android and it offers several significant innovations unique to BB10. Each platform will still have its own specific benefits, but they are all on the same playing field.

Anyone who thinks that Apple or Google are too successful to see a decline in market share need only to look at what happened to RIM. Five years ago RIM had everything to lose and they became a victim of their own success. Today, Blackberry has everything to gain. They have walked through "the valley of death" while developing BB10 and they are now poised to reap the rewards.

Consider this - Blackberry could quadruple their sales in the U.S. and it wouldn't even make a dent in the Apple/Google market share. Who wants an Apple/Google duopoly anyways?

Jan. 30, 2013 at 5:19 p.m

DredgeToronto

Yep, it's what we've been waiting for. Couple of points with the article, though. BBM voice chat is available in all BBs that can run BBM version 7 and up, although not for video. Also, the phone is a true multi-tasking machine, where it can run several apps, all simultaneously, accessible with a flick of the finger from the bottom of the screen. Unlike Android or Apple, which suspend the apps, all of BB10's apps are running real-time.

Good to see some life in the old girl.

Jan. 30, 2013 at 1:38 p.m.RECOMMENDED23

3ddi3 BNYC

I didnt hear anything about UMA, a vastly much better technology available on my Curve for 3 years. It allows wifi calling, including emails, texts, web, and free use from foreign countries. Only from Tmobile, though.

Jan. 30, 2013 at 10:56 p.m

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