Score: 8/10 (Great)
Pros Incredible physical QWERTY keyboard, great looking screen, processing speeds and camera both perform quite well, long lasting battery, BB10 is great for productivity. | Cons Design is uninspired, phone would randomly restart itself, BlackBerry World is greatly lacking in applications that are worth downloading. |
The BlackBerry Z10, the first phone that ran BlackBerry 10, was a solid first try for BlackBerry to reenter themselves into the smartphone market. Unfortunately, many hardcore BlackBerry fans were disappointed with the lack of a physical QWERTY keyboard. For those of you that weren't pleased with the virtual keyboard found on the Z10, there is the BlackBerry Q10. The BlackBerry Q10 is the latest smartphone offering from BlackBerry, and it is looking to be the ultimate phone for business people. So, is the Q10 the BlackBerry phone we've been waiting for? Find out in our full review!
Design/Build Quality
Measuring in at 4.71 x 2.63 x 0.41 in and with a weight of 4.90 oz, the BlackBerry Q10 is a very compact smartphone. With big phablets seeming to be all the rage nowadays, it is a nice breath of fresh air to use a smartphone that doesn't mind being smaller than the average bear. On the front of the Q10 is the phone's 3.1-inch touchscreen, with a notification light, earpiece, and 2MP front-facing camera above it. Below the screen is the Q10's magnificent physical keyboard. It is quite rare to see a major phone retaining the feature of a physical keyboard, and it's going to be hard for me to go back to a virtual one after having spent some nice quality time with the Q10. On the back of the Q10 you will find it's 8MP rear-facing camera with LED flash, along with a BlackBerry logo and 2 Verizon Wireless logos. On the right-hand side is the phone's volume rocker with a dedicated voice assistant button in the middle. On the left rests the phone's miniHDMI and microUSB ports. Up top are 2 noise-cancelling microphone pinholes, power/lock button, and 3.5mm headphone jack. Finally, on the bottom, is another microphone pinhole, and speaker grill (which actually pumps out some really nice sounding audio).
Unfortunately, the BlackBerry Q10 is a pretty ugly-looking device. While the phone feels good in the hand, it looks like its design is out of 2011. There were actually a couple of times that I felt embarrassed to be seen using the phone, with such an ugly design. I know that the design won't be that big of a deal to everyone, but it is something that I wasn't a fan of with the Q10.
Unfortunately, the BlackBerry Q10 is a pretty ugly-looking device. While the phone feels good in the hand, it looks like its design is out of 2011. There were actually a couple of times that I felt embarrassed to be seen using the phone, with such an ugly design. I know that the design won't be that big of a deal to everyone, but it is something that I wasn't a fan of with the Q10.
Hardware
As mentioned before, the BlackBerry Q10 has a 3.1-inch screen. The screen has a pixel resolution of 720 x 720p HD, with a pixel density of 328 ppi. Although you aren't getting a 1080p Full HD screen resolution, the display on the Q10 looks beautiful. Because of the smaller screen real estate, you have a higher pixel density than you have with most 720p HD displays. And with that higher pixel density, you get an extremely crisp display that looks downright fantastic.
In terms of processing speeds, the BlackBerry Q10 is packing in a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snpadragon S4 Pro CPU, along with 2GB of RAM. While the Q10 isn't going to blow you away with crazy-fast speed and power, day-to-day tasks such as a Web browsing, application usage, video streaming, and more run perfectly fine. The phone actually surprised me in terms of gaming performance. Since this phone is more of a productivity phone, rather than one for content consumption, I wasn't expecting very good game quality. However, the BlackBerry Q10 was able to power through Beach Buggy Blitz with little-to-no lag or frame rate issues.
For your picture taking wants and needs, the BackBerry Q10 has an 8MP rear-facing camera with LED flash, along with a front-facing 2MP camera. The story is nearly the same for the cameras, as it was for the processors. Although the pictures and video quality you get from the cameras on the Q10 won't blow you away, they get the job done, and take some good looking pics and video.
To get you through your days of work, the Q10 holds a 2100 mAh removable battery. Overall, I was quite pleased with the battery performance. With heavy texting, moderate Web browsing, moderate music streaming, and moderate application usage, I still had 23% battery life left at 10:30 PM after having turned the phone on at 6:30 AM. Even though you probably won't be able to get through 2 full days of use with the Q10, you shouldn't have any trouble at all getting through at least one full day.
The BlackBerry Q10 that I reviewed is the Verizon Wireless model. In terms of call quality and data speeds, the Q10 performed admirably. Call quality was great on both ends of a phone conversation, and 4G LTE data speeds were fast and snappy. One issue I did run into with the Q10 though, were random restarts. When I originally got the Q10 in to review, I was forced to send it back, due to the phone randomly shutting itself off and on. At one point, the phone did this about 12 times in a single day, which forced me to send it back, and get a different review unit. Unfortunately, the second model I received also restarted itself. It didn't do it nearly as often, but there were still a couple situations where the phone would completely restart itself with no prior warning. The PR rep at Verizon that I spoke to said that he hadn't heard of any issues like this, so I am not sure what to make of it. Seeing that this happened to me with 2 different review units though, I am lead to believe that there is some sort of faulty wiring in the Q10. (If you've had issues similar to these, please let us know about them in the comments below).
Software
The BlackBerry Q10 is the second device to ever run BlackBerry's latest OS, BlackBerry 10. BlackBerry 10 is a very interesting mobile OS. It's quite limited when it comes to customization, but it does offer really great multi-tasking features that work quite well. Your main home screens consists of a 4x3 grid of all of your installed applications. Swiping over to the right takes you to your BlackBerry Hub. From the BlackBerry Hub, you can see all of your device notifications, text messages, emails, Facebook and Twitter updates, and more.
Although I do like how BlackBerry 10 operates, there is one big issues that really hampers the overall enjoyment of the OS. The applications (or should I say, the lack there of). The BlackBerry World is greatly lacking in application availability. You can still get the real biggies like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and The Weather Channel, but that's about it. There aren't any apps for Instagram, Vine, iHeartRadio, or even Netflix. BlackBerry World makes Microsoft's Windows Store for Windows Phone 8 look like Apple's App Store when it comes to application offerings. Even though they have crafted a fine mobile OS, BlackBerry absolutely must get more software support in the BlackBerry World if they want to be taken seriously in the smartphone market.
Final Verdict
So, who is the BlackBerry Q10 for? If you are a business person, and want the ultimate phone for productivity, or are a hardcore BlackBerry fan and were disappointed with the Z10, this just might be the phone for you. While it isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it does feel like a better attempt than the Z10. Even though I did have my fair share of complaints with the Q10, I'm not the target audience for this phone. This is the phone that a lot of BlackBerry fans have been waiting for, and although it isn't the best smartphone out there on the market, it does feel like a step in the right direction for BlackBerry, as they try to regain the position they once dominated.
DISCLAIMER: Joseph Maring used the BlackBerry Q10 for 18 days before beginning to write his review of the device. Verizon Wireless sent us the Q10 to review, but in no way affected our final score of the handset.
Author: Joseph Maring
DISCLAIMER: Joseph Maring used the BlackBerry Q10 for 18 days before beginning to write his review of the device. Verizon Wireless sent us the Q10 to review, but in no way affected our final score of the handset.
Author: Joseph Maring
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