BlackBerry Z10

BLACKBERRY Z10 REVIEW

The BlackBerry Z10 has finally arrived after what has been a very tough year for the company and with the rumoured iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S4 handsets due to land in 2013, the battle has only just begun. A large glass front is then sandwiched by two plastic ends with a slightly rubberised back covering the rear. With the functional 'substance over style. stealth-like aesthetics, the Z10 is something that we would imagine to be as comfortable in the hand of a bat-obsessed crusader as a businessman. The first new BlackBerry in a long time is also the first to be running BlackBerry’s OS 10. It’s an entirely new code base running on a 4.2-inch 1,280 x 768-pixel (356ppi) touchscreen device. The Z10 proves how good OS 10 can be, with a button-free design that keeps a central information hub present at all times, so it’s effortless to keep up to date with your email, SMS and social media networks. BlackBerry’s famous for its keyboards and the OS 10 keyboard here works beautifully once you get the hang of its flick upwards autocomplete feature. There are downsides, though. App support is still limited at launch, with popular apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp notably absent. The Z10 is certainly a solid phone. It’s also nice to have another smartphone OS option and those who love having quick direct action to their messaging and social media will love the Hub features. However, up against the heavyweights of the iOS, Windows Phone and Android worlds, it falls short.

SPECIFICATION & FEATURES

DISPLAY & SCREEN

Type:	Capacitive touchscreen
Display Protection:	Contrast ratio: 1532 (nominal) / 2.051:1 (sunlight)
Colors:	16M colors
Aspect ratio:	15:9
Touchscreen:	Multi-touch
Size:	4.2 inches
Resolution:	768 x 1280 pixels, 24-bit color depth
Pixel density:	356 ppi,
Features:	Light sensor, Proximity sensor

BODY & DESIGN

Device type:	Smart phone
Operating system:	BlackBerry 10 OS
Dimensions:	(5.12 x 2.58 x 0.35 inches) / (130 x 65.6 x 9 mm )
Weight:	(138 g) / (4.85 oz)
Keys and Input Methods:	On screen BlackBerry Keyboard (portrait/landscape), featuring contextual auto-correction, next-word prediction, and a personalized learning engine that gets to know the way you type
Dedicated keys:	Volume Up/Down, Mute, Lock (for Power On/Off)

GENERAL TECHNOLOGY

2G Network:	GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900 - all versions
3G Network:	HSDPA 850, 900, 1900, 2100 - STL100-1 HSDPA 850, 900, 2100 - STL100-2
4G Network:	LTE Band-13 (700 MHz) CDMA Cell-band and PCS-band (800/1900 MHz) WCDMA Band-1 and Band-8 (2100/900 MHz) GSM/EDGE Quad Bands (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
Data:	LTE, HSPA (unspecified), UMTS, EDGE, GPRS
Positioning:	GPS, A-GPS
Navigation:	Yes, (All-touch screen, with intuitive gesture based navigation)
SIM:	Micro-SIM
Announced:	30 Jan 2013
Released:	31 Jan 2013, Available

HARDWARE & MEMORY

Processor:	Dual core, 1500 MHz, Krait
Graphics processor:	Adreno 225
System memory:	2048 MB RAM
Built-in storage:	16 GB Flash storage
Card slot:	Removable microSD memory card, microSDHC, microSDXC up to 64 GB

MULTIMEDIA & SOUND

Alert types:	Vibration, MP3 ringtones, On-screen or LED indicator
Audio quality:	Noise -82.8dB / Crosstalk -80.5dB
Audio & Video formats:	3GP, 3GP2, M4A, M4V, MOV, MP4, MKV, MPEG-4, AVI, ASF, WMV, WMA, MP3, MKA, AAC, AMR, F4V, WAV, MP2PS, MP2TS, AWB, OGG, FLAC
Audio & video encoding / decoding:	H.264, MPEG-4, H.263, AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC, MP3, PCM, Xvid, AMR-NB, WMA 9/10, WMA10 professional, WMA-LL, VC-1, VP6, SPARK, PCM, MPEG-2, MJPEG (mov), AC-3, AMR-WB, QCELP, FLAC, VORBIS
Image formats:	BMP, WBMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SGI, TGA
Loudspeaker:	Yes, (Voice 70dB / Noise 67dB / Ring 73dB)
Headphone:	Yes, (Integrated hands-free speakerphone, Hands-free headset capable, Bluetooth headset capable
3.5mm jack:	Yes
Music player: Filter by: Features:	Yes Album, Artist, Playlists Album art cover, Background playback
Radio:	No

CAMERA

Camera:	Photo & Video
Primary  Camera quality:	8 megapixels, 3264 x 2448 pixels
Flash:	LED flash
Aperture size:	F2.2
Features:	Auto focus, Touch to focus, Digital image stabilization
Video:	1920x1080 (1080p HD) (30 fps), video stabilization
Features:	Digital image stabilization
Primary camera:	Yes (8 megapixels), autofocus, LED flash
Primary camera features:	--Back Side Illumination for better low-light performance --5-element F2.2 lens --Dedicated ISP (image signal processor) with 64MB frame buffer Flash, continuous and touch to focus, image stabilization --Enhanced Super Resolution Digital Zoom (5x) --1080p HD video recording --4 DOF (Degrees of freedom) video stabilization --Time Shift mode for pinpointing and adjusting individual elements of your picture
Secondary camera:	Yes (2 megapixels), 720p@30fps
Secondary camera features:	fixed-focus camera Image and video stabilization 3x digital zoom 720p HD video recording

CONNECTIVITY

WLAN:	Wi-Fi 802.11 (a/b/g/n, dual band)
Bluetooth:	Yes (v4.0 with A2DP, LE)
USB:	Yes, (USB 2.0 high speed port – allows charging and data synchronization of the device with a USB cable)
Connector:	microUSB
Features:	Mass storage device, USB charging
NFC:	Yes, (BlackBerry® Tag with NFC technology enables communication between BlackBerry smartphones and other NFC-enabled devices with a tap)
GPRS:	Yes
EDGE:	Yes
Speed:	HSDPA 21 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps; LTE, EV-DO Rev. A, up to 3.1 Mbps
HDMI:	Micro HDMI for connection to your HDTV or projector (Type D)
Other:	Tethering, Computer sync, OTA sync

APPS

Pre-loaded apps:	BlackBerry® Hub, Contacts, BlackBerry® Browser, BlackBerry® Calendar, BBM, Text Messages, BlackBerry® World, BlackBerry® Remember, Docs To Go™, Pictures, Music, Videos, Story Maker, Facebook®1, Twitter®1, LinkedIn®1, Foursquare®, BlackBerry® Maps, Games, YouTube®, Voice Control, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Compass, File Manager, Box, BlackBerry® Connect for Dropbox, Print To Go, Smart Tags, Settings, Adobe® Reader, Phone, Camera/Video Camera/Time Shift, Setup, Help, SIM Toolkit, Search
Software platform:	BlackBerry® Link software for your computer to enable synchronization of data and media
Security:	Password protection, screen lock, and sleep mode BlackBerry® Balance™ offering dedicated profiles to keep work and personal data separate and secure

FEATURES

OS:	BlackBerry 10 OS, upgradable to v10.1
Chipset:	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8960
CPU:	Dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait
GPU:	Adreno 225
Sensors:	Accelerometer, Gyroscope, proximity, compass, Magnetometer, Ambient light sensor
Messaging:	SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM, BBM 6
Browser:	HTML5
Phone Book:	Yes
Charging:	Charger
Call Records:	Yes
SMS:	Yes
MMS:	Yes
E-Mail:	Yes
Instant Messaging:	Yes
Predictive text input:	Yes, T9 input
Voice message:	Yes
Voice dialing:	Yes
Voice commands:	Yes
Voice recording:	Yes
TTY/TDD:	Yes
Radio:	No
GPS:	Yes, (Assisted, Autonomous and Simultaneous GPS Preloaded with BlackBerry Maps application GLONASS Support)
Accessibility features:	--BlackBerry® Magnify, for customers with partial vision --Face-to-face video chat with BBM™ Video --Voice Control for sending messages, placing calls, search and more --Adjustable screen brightness, scalable fonts --Teletypewriter (TTY) Support --Certain models rated for use with hearing aids
Java:	Yes, MIDP 2.1
Colors:	Black, White
Notifications:	Haptic feedback, Music ringtones (MP3), Polyphonic ringtones, Vibration, Flight mode, Silent mode, Speakerphone
Others:	--SNS integration --HDMI port --BlackBerry maps --Organizer --Document viewer --Photo viewer --MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+/FlAC player --DivX/XviD/MP4/WMV/H.263/H.264 player --Voice memo/dial --Predictive text input

BATTERY

Battery Type:	Li-Ion battery
Capacity:	1800 mAH removable battery
Stand-by time:	Up to 312 hours (3G), 19.0 days
Talk time:	Up to 10 hours (3G)
Battery life:	Endurance rating 46h, Battery life claims are for Model STL100-2

BLACKBERRY Z10 PRICE

Price in USA $480

Price in UK £330