NOTE ON PICTURES: One of great things about the pictures in this review is that I’m not a photographer and so the pics aren’t doctored or made to look especially beautiful. It’s like going to a restaurant and seeing realistic pictures of the food on the menu. Also, all pictures are taken with a Z10 to give you an idea of camera quality.

HARDWARE

Overall, the BlackBerry Z10 feels like a nicely balanced device. The weight feels great, as it’s not too light and not too heavy. The iPhone 5 by comparison is about 23 grams lighter than the BlackBerry Z10 and it feels a little too light. The Z10 hardware is also really sturdy. I have dropped the Z10 a handful of times, without a case, and it has never received more than a little scratch on the back cover.

The buttons on the Z10 are helpful and easy to press. The volume keys allow you to change volume levels even when the device is locked, which helps for listening to music. Locking and unlocking the device is a breeze and there’s even a fun swipe feature for waking the device up. More on that feature in the software section. The best part of the hardware is probably the HDMI and Micro-USB connections. It’s so nice to be able to share connectors with people who don’t even use a BlackBerry 10 device. Sharing a charger with someone makes you realize how lame it must be to be an iPhone 5 user.

Specifications are something that everybody loves to chat about but it’s really inconsequential. The primary purpose of specs should be to meet the consumer’s needs and compromise between a quick, snappy experience and prolonged battery life.

The specs that the BlackBerry Z10 apart from the other devices are the following:

• 1280 x 768 resolution, at 356 PPI, 4.2 inch screen
• Removable battery
• 8 megapixel auto-focus camera
• 1080p HD video recording
• 2 megapixel fixed-focus front camera
• 720p HD video recording
• BlackBerry Balance for corporate users
• Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy (LE)
• NFC
• Support for HDMI and Micro-USB

Check out the full specifications for the BlackBerry Z10 at this link.

Every review has a section on call quality and there is never really a point in writing about it because call quality doesn’t vary much between smartphones. The BlackBerry Z10 has a decent phone app with reliable service on both Telus and Rogers (I switched carriers on the device). There was a few times when the call quality seemed like a device bug and the phone app seemed to glitch out a little. More on that in the software section.

DISPLAY

The BlackBerry Z10 has a beautiful screen. With a 1280 x 768 resolution, at 356 PPI and a 4.2 inch screen, the Z10′s resolution is powerful enough to look great on the device and also great when connected to a TV with the HDMI connection. Just take a look at the above screenshot from the game N.O.V.A. 3. It speaks for itself.

CAMERA

The BlackBerry Z10 has a nicely spec’d camera as described above. The photo option also comes with a nice feature called Time Shift which allows you to shift the time of the picture, specifically a face in the photo so you can get the perfect shot.

Here is a video I took with the Z10 which I also edited using the native editing software. I wasn’t able to actually upload the video to YouTube either Over The Air or on WiFi, either from the native app or from YouTube’s site. More on these kind of small bugs in the BlackBerry 10 review.

The quality of the video camera is great but what really sets it apart is the ability to edit videos and create your own montages. Below is an example of a tour of the Quirky offices that I took while in New York and used the BlackBerry Z10 video editing software to make a video montage on the fly (uploading to YouTube worked in this instance).

Here are a few pictures I took to give you an idea of what it’s like taking pics in varying degrees of light (click to enlarge any of them).

BLACKBERRY 10 BY QNX

BlackBerry 10 is a huge improvement over the legacy BlackBerry OS. It’s everything that BlackBerry needs to be in order to be competitive in the smartphone industry. The way it handles apps, multi-tasks and “flows” is such a breath of fresh air compared to the old BlackBerry experience. The User Experience is fast and responsive and overall I’m really pleased with the experience, especially when compared to the legacy devices. The Android player on the device also opens up the app market quite a bit and some of my favorite apps are Android ports.

Currently, my favorite features of BlackBerry 10 are:

• Downloading OS updates over the air.
• The time to reset and boot the device is short.
• Multi-tasking apps is a lot of fun due to the gestures.
• Universal Search
• BlackBerry Hub

One of the downsides of the way BlackBerry 10 handles multiple apps is that everything feels segregated. On legacy BlackBerry devices, everything would connect in this beautiful way that made you feel productive. That’s not the case with BlackBerry 10. A great example of this is dialing contacts in the phone app. The Address Book and the Phone App are two distinctive apps, making for a very aggravating contact management and calling system.

The biggest problem I have with the BlackBerry 10 OS is that it’s 93% complete. It doesn’t feel fully polished and there are bugs that I can, after a month of using the device, duplicate. For example, if you have multiple emails associated with the device, and you try and add a calendar event without specifying the email associated with that event, you crash the calendar app. That’s one of those bugs that makes you realize that maybe US carriers were right to delay the release. It’s also surprising because the QNX OS has been around for so long, not only in the market before the BlackBerry acquisition, but on the PlayBook running a calendar app. To be fair, the bug has been fixed in an update that BlackBerry released on March 1st, 2013, but that’s a full month after launch.

See this Inside BlackBerry blog post for updates that were released during that OS update.

“The biggest problem I have with the BlackBerry 10 OS is that it’s 93% complete.”

To this day, there are still some bugs on BlackBerry 10 that are annoying. For example, the browser crashes once a week on me and if I hit my mobile banking site from the Z10, the browser flashes like it’s trying to give me epileptic seizures. Also, the Hub doesn’t do a good job of managing notifications. Sometimes emails will not show up in the Hub, but will show in that email’s respective section and often times notifications will not go away even after they’ve been marked read.

There are a few other issues that the OS has such as changing the font size can cause letters to overlap and the orientation can be finicky. It’s hard to list all the issues but generally it leaves you with a feeling that the OS needs to “mature” a little.

All of this is not unusual for a new smartphone. It’s really difficult to put every facet of the device through QA considering the millions upon millions of different actions a user can take. Hopefully all these crashes are being logged at BlackBerry somehow and they’re all being tracked. Even though there are issues with the OS and several little bugs, the OS in general is awesome and any smartphone user would appreciate the way the OS has been designed and implemented. It’s just going to take a little longer, probably only until the Q10 is released, for all the kinks to be fully worked out.

KEYBOARD AND MESSAGING

The reason I have been using a BlackBerry for so long is that it does one thing and it does it really well: messaging. The vast majority of my smartphone use is spent messaging, whether it’s email, SMS, twitter or BBM. The problem with the Z10 is that the virtual keyboard doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. About once per day I make an embarrassing mistake and send an email or a message with a typo that makes me curse the virtual keyboard. The main issue is that it’s really difficult to train your brain to “flick”. Unless you’re flicking, the spell checker will replace your intended word with what it thinks you want to type. Without the flick, you’re constantly working against a virtual keyboard that thinks it’s smarter than you. Check out the video below to see flick in action if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Just to be clear, this is nothing against BlackBerry’s virtual keyboard per se. I don’t like any virtual keyboard. I’m a loyal BlackBerry user because of the physical keyboard. Just look at Eric Shmidt of Google, he still uses a keyboard and probably for the same reason. The typing experience is unparalelled. BlackBerry did a great job improving on the virtual keyboard experience with the “flick” experience, but as someone who loves a keyboard, this isn’t going to convince me to use this device. Personally, I can’t wait until the Q10 comes out because it will be the best of both worlds.

In terms of messaging, BlackBerry Hub is the main selling point with BlackBerry 10 and it’s a great feature. Currently, I have 5 emails, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, BBM, SMS, Calls and Notifications all being pushed to the Hub. The BlackBerry Hub generally does an excellent job of managing all those accounts, calendars and contacts and is a constant reminder of why I’m a loyal BlackBerry user.

“The BlackBerry Hub generally does an excellent job of managing all those accounts, calendars and contacts and is a constant reminder of why I’m a loyal BlackBerry user.”

The biggest problem with emails on a BlackBerry Z10? The blue font. Who at BlackBerry thought it would be a good idea to turn my emails blue? It really sucks to broadcast to everyone that you’re sending an email from a mobile device. It could potentially offend your customers. BlackBerry of all companies should know that. Overall, it’s really frustrating and there is no way to turn it off.

PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE

Performance on the Z10 is magnificent. Apps load quickly and the device boots up in a short period of time. Overall, the device has never frozen, crashed, restarted or had any major performance issues other than the small bugs mentioned above. The BlackBerry 10 OS by QNX definitely seems to be worth its purchase price as it brings BlackBerry into a new era of mobile computing that is versatile and able to exist beyond just smartphones and tablets.

The battery life on the Z10 was particularly bad for the first month of launch but the most recent OS update seems to have really helped. Actually, maybe this point deserves to be in software because it’s quite a big battery that should be able to power the device, but with using the device as a Power User, you’re getting about 4 hours on it before the update and about 6 at this point in time.

To help battery life, I’ve purchased what is arguably the best BlackBerry Z10 accessory on the market: the Z10 Battery Charger Bundle. Not only can you plug the battery bundle straight into the device to save your phone from dying while on a call, but you can swap out the batteries and start fresh. This accessory has been a life saver and it’s a must-have for any Z10 user.

CONCLUSIONS

The first question you need to ask yourself when looking at the Z10 is: am I a touchscreen or QWERTY user? The question can also be answered by asking yourself what you’re going to use your device for most often. Will you be doing a lot of messaging and business? Or will you be playing games and browsing the Internet. If the answer is messaging, I say wait for the Q10. I’ve personally tried the Q10 and the combination of BlackBerry 10 and a QWERTY keyboard is the best of both worlds. If you’re going to be playing games and using your BlackBerry 10 device as a media device, get the Z10. You’ll appreciate the large screen and gesture interface.

In terms of the BlackBerry Z10 as an entry device into the new era of BlackBerry: it’s everything that we wanted from the new BlackBerry. It has a unique value proposition, great gestures, core OS features that differentiate it from the competition, a solid platform for attracting developers, and a slick piece of hardware to hold it all.

Will this device get BlackBerry to the number 3 position? I hope so. It’s so hard to tell these days. It seems insane that only 2 operating systems can dominate the entire mobile OS market, especially because 10 years from now smartphones could easily number in the billions. The BlackBerry Z10 does have everything BlackBerry needs to be a major player, but who knows how the markets will respond. Perhaps a company can make the best product in the world but there are so many other factors that contribute to its success or failure. Intangible elements such as “consumer brand perception” are so difficult to predict. But if I were a gambling man, I would definitely say that this is a device the consumer is going to enjoy, and that would lead me to put some money down on this company. Not only is the BlackBerry Z10 a great smartphone purchase, but the BlackBerry 10 platform is really inspiring.

1. “Apple Stores Offer the Best Buying Experience and Customer Service On The Planet” – Tim Cook

The following is a 100% accurate true story experience of going to an Apple Store:

Apple actually has one of the worst retail experiences in the world. First, you walk in and somebody immediately accosts you with “Hi! How can I help you?!”, which is really annoying if you know what you want and just want to do a little browsing first. I’d like to feel a little independent. During the course of your browsing, about 5 more people will ask you “may I help you?” every 2 minutes until you finally cave and accept their help. Now comes the fun part: actually buying something.

Buying something at the Apple store involves standing there while somebody types out your order on their iPod when all they really have to do is just get the package and let you be on your way. But no, they have to stare at a screen while you stand there looking like an idiot and they figure out how to text the guy in the back what you actually want. “Wait, this is a business order? Okay, I’ll have to go get John in business relations.” So now they’re off to find John. Meanwhile, about 5 more employees will come up and ask you “can I help you with something?”. Yes, they’re off to find John from Business Relations. Now you have 5 people off to find John from Business Relations and you’re wondering how many people does this store employee? Thousands? They’re all just running around like Lemmings and you still don’t have the product you want to buy.

Here comes the worst part: finally, John from Business Relations emerges with the posse of 7 people you’ve sent to go find him and he is ready to process your order. After more fumbling with that iPod and getting you to input your personal info (it never registers your Apple ID), you still can’t walk away with your product because you’ve asked for a RAM upgrade, or a “RAM Slam” as they call it. You ask if you could just do it yourself to which they reply “no, sorry”, making you feel even more stupid than you already feel. So now you’ll have to wait 2 hours and come back.

You now leave the store, nothing in hand, and so frustrated that you’re ready to just kill yourself rather than have to go back to that dreaded Apple Store.

2. “Today we’re taking it to the next level. Making a huge leap.” – Tim Cook

This quote is great because the definition of “huge leap” is vastly different to Apple than it is to any of us. Along with this quote, I’d like to also submit the following as runners up to this:

“It’s THE best phone we’ve ever made.”

“I don’t think the level of invention has ever been matched by any other product we’ve done.”

A company would never launch a product and say, “it’s pretty great, but not as great as what we launched last year.” Although the crowd eats these lines up, everyone else in the world is rolling their eyes and trying not to laugh.

3. “It’s the world’s thinnest smartphone.” – Phil Schiller (7.6mm thin)

Wait, isn’t the DROID RAZR 7.1mm thick? That would make it the world’s thinnest smartphone, not the iPhone 5. Maybe this is Phil’s way of making fun of Motorola and Google, saying that the RAZR isn’t a true smartphone. Steve Jobs was really mad about Google coming out with Android because he thought it was a copy of the iPhone. Like George W Bush taking on the hate of Saddam from George Bush Sr., so too does Tim Cook take issue with Google after Jobs.

4. “What makes iPhone 5 so unique is how it feels in your hand. The materials… the remarkable precision. Never before have we built a product with this extraordinarily level of fit and finish.” – Phil Schiller

You know what makes my BlackBerry unique? How it feels in my hands. It just feels different than other smartphones. Hey Phil, you know why? Because it is different. I’m sure the iPhone 5 is a wonderful device in terms of manufacturing and design, like all Apple products, but to say “what makes iPhone 5 SO unique”, means that it’s not really that unique at all.

5. “iPhone 5 and iOS 6: the biggest things to happen to the iPhone since the iPhone.” – Tim Coook

This quote could have gone along with number 3, but it’s just so insane it needs its own section. What does it even mean? It’s like a puzzle wrapped in an enigma shrouded in mystery.

Honorable Mention: “iPads are being used everywhere by everyone… almost all of the Fortune 500 are testing or deploying iPad. They’re investing in custom apps — something none of them do on the PC!”

Fortune 500 companies do not make custom apps for their organizations on PC? Wait, so they don’t have any in-house software for their IT departments or to interact with their server infrastructure or sales teams? No, this is obviously not true. Fortune 500 companies spend a lot of time and money building in-house solutions and acquiring companies to help grow their in-house solutions. The Reality Distortion Field here is probably centered around the definition of “custom apps”. What’s an app other than just a piece of software? Well if you spoke with someone at Apple, I’m sure you’d get a very convoluted explanation.

Also, “being used everywhere by everyone”. Wow, that’s almost 7 billion iPads!

For great keynote coverage, definitely check out gdgt live.

Because the app is built by RIM, the company has to wait on Facebook releasing APIs that support critical features such as Event Management. Ideally, RIM wouldn’t have to wait on this and would be given source code under NDA, but this isn’t the case. Considering all the bad PR around RIM and the fact that the company is downsizing to buckle down for BlackBerry 10, it doesn’t look like the OS 5-7 version of Facebook for BlackBerry is going to get up to par with the iOS version any time soon.

Facebook for iOS feed view

This is a perfect example of how different the user experience is for iOS versus BlackBerry. When I open my feed on both devices, BlackBerry doesn’t even show Instagram posts whereas iOS shows a beautiful image in the feed.

Facebook for BlackBerry feed view

One of the most obvious differences between the Facebook app for iOS versus BlackBerry is the feed view. The feed on iOS is a pleasure to look at and pictures all load in the feed. The BlackBerry version looks just terrible by comparison. The BlackBerry version still lacks features (even in the current version in the Beta Zone) that the iOS version has such as being able to look at pictures in the feed. Some have said that it’s because of the Facebook acquisition of Instagram that pictures in the iOS feed are larger and more beautiful. Perhaps the fact that Facebook controls the iOS version means they put far more attention to detail in the app and since Instagram also ignored BlackBerry, perhaps the acquisition affects the user experience on BlackBerry in more ways than one.

We’ve learned that Facebook is being made for BlackBerry 10, but it looks like it’s still being developed by RIM. This could be a big problem because, as mentioned above, if RIM is constantly waiting on Facebook to release them APIs in order to keep up with the other apps, it will always be behind. Then again, there’s no way RIM could release a BlackBerry 10 smartphone without Facebook.

Perhaps the fact that Microsoft Corporation developed the Windows Phone version of Facebook provides some hope for the situation. Microsoft has experienced the same problems as RIM when developing a third party Facebook app. Just look at this Engadget quote:

“In fact, [Facebook for Windows Phone] wasn’t really something you looked forward to using and it’s been slow to add the features considered standard on competing mobile platforms. “

Many have complained about the lack of features for Facebook for Windows Phone but Microsoft is pushing Facebook for APIs that RIM will surely be able to take advantage of as well. Hopefully Microsoft is paving the way for a great Facebook app for BlackBerry 10.

Facebook has also invested a great deal of money in mobile development companies. Surely, this investment will span more platforms than just iOS. With BlackBerry 10 supporting many familiar code bases for iOS and Android devs, perhaps we won’t have to see Facebook for BlackBerry 10 by RIM forever. Hopefully RIM will be able to convince Facebook to make the app themselves. If it’s not too much dev work, and if they can instill confidence in Facebook that the subscriber numbers will be significant, then a Facebook for BlackBerry by Facebook would be the most ideal situation. We have our fingers crossed that this will be the situation.

Do you believe HTML5/PhoneGap will allow for a true cross-platform capability?

I don’t believe that’s the point. Most companies and developers know that HTML5/PhoneGap provides a less than ideal user experience and the non-native approach and it’s more about testing the waters. For example, I may want to do a native version for iPhone and test the BlackBerry download market with an HTML5 version as it’s a lower barrier to entry. You can always update the app with a native version down the road if you like the initial numbers. RIM is just allowing developers many points of entry into the platform and that makes a lot of sense. But at the end of the day, everyone knows a true commitment requires native.

What’s your take on the discrepancy between some of BBJam’s developer growth claims versus the media reports of mass declines in developers?

I think they’re probably both right. As someone who was at BlackBerry Jam, there were plenty of developers eager to get on the platform. The European and Asian interest is huge for BlackBerry too. But at the same time, we’ve seen many startups avoid BlackBerry as well as festivals increasingly ignoring the BlackBerry market. So could they both be right? Perhaps the media is simply talking about a different type of developer or a different market.

RIM is doing a great job at bringing new developers to mobile. For example, at this year’s Ottawa Game Conference, I got the impression that the indie game community was excited about PlayBook and BlackBerry 10. A lot of the indie game community uses Adobe Flash and AIR which doesn’t port well to iOS. PlayBook’s Adobe support means these developers now can go mobile with relative ease. On the other hand, if you’re a mobile gaming startup, you’re probably ignoring PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 until the subscriber numbers increase. So in this sense, RIM is making both gains and losses.

Do you think that BBM will help retain RIM’s prepaid customers?

Probably not. From an anecdotal standpoint, my BBM list as well as most of my friends’ who are still on BlackBerry have seen their BBM Contacts list draining. From a purely North American perspective, the drain in subscribers is going to affect BBM and its impact on customer retention. In terms of Asia and Latin America, BBM is probably going better than ever. It’s hard to comment on that though. Does BBM even result in customer retention in Asia and Latin America? Surely there’s many more reasons why these customers are staying with prepaid. At the end of the day though, BBM is only effective if you’ve got your best friends using it. In North America, this is becoming increasingly rare.

Everyone mentions BB10 feels like the PlayBook, but the PlayBook could be called either a flop or a very successful seeding, and one would hope the BB10 is far more than a PlayBook. I’d like to understand your initial impressions of the Dev Alpha device.

Whoa, whoa, simmer down sparky. There’s BlackBerry 10, PlayBook and the Dev Alpha device all mentioned in that question and they’re all worth giving some individual attention.

BlackBerry 10: Based on the same OS as PlayBook (QNX), the first release of BlackBerry 10 won’t look or feel like PlayBook. The most important similarity between PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 will be the apps. Developers will be able to port their apps over from PlayBook to 10 with relative ease, therefore seeding the initial smartphones with software. This is a smart move that I wish BlackBerry had done with its previous devices. There was a device roadmap leak recently that hinted towards a BlackBerry 10 update for the PlayBook, so it should be interesting to see how the two operating systems look after the launch of BlackBerry 10.

BlackBerry 10 Demo on YouTube at this link (for mobile).

Dev Alpha Device: In order to help developers get from PlayBook to BB 10, RIM has seeded many interested devs with a testing device. The device is not even worth talking about in terms of its features or as a smartphone. It is purely for developers to test with and it’s essentially a PlayBook with a smaller screen and radio.

So yes, BB 10 will be far more than a PlayBook at first, but down the road the look and feel might converge a little. More importantly, BlackBerry 10 will be far more with a PlayBook. RIM still has some tricks up its sleeves when it comes to how all of this will integrate. I have confidence that RIM will show off some pretty cool integration between the smartphone, tablet and automotive. It’s all there in the QNX OS.

Any thoughts on developer health/RIM’s app ecosystem following the delay to Q1 2013?

The BlackBerry 10 delay is a tough pill to swallow. For developers, it’s definitely a pain as they’ve invested all this time in developing for BlackBerry 10, only to find out they won’t have a single smartphone customer until potentially March 2013. RIM will definitely have to pull a few special promotions between now and Q1 2013 to keep PlayBook sales going. The new radio-enabled PlayBook is supposed to come between now and the BlackBerry 10 launch which will hopefully garner some sales and boost the app ecosystem. I’d like to see the PlayBook OS get some powerful updates that will get them some positive media attention and build up some hype on the way to the new PlayBook launch. Ideally, we’d see PlayBook OS 2.5 or 3.0 launch in conjunction with the new PlayBook 4G.

To enter, tweet “@untether I want @blackberrycool to send me to #Utalks” and they’ll DM you if you won.

Check out the full details of the conference at UntetherTalks.com.

Only 4 days left to the inaugural UNTETHER.talks. 2 days, 28 speakers, all talking about the future of mobile. untethertalks.com #li

— Rob Woodbridge (@RobWoodbridge) June 22, 2012

The idea of Untether.Talks is that it’s “the TED Talks for mobile”. The speakers, themes and sessions are the conference. Don’t expect there to be a list of sessions and any planning involved. Simply show up to the conference and get inspired.

The guys at Untether.Talks were also kind enough to offer BlackBerryCool readers a discount on tickets. Simply head to the registration page and use the coupon code “OCtVqiNZT8DzUZi” for 25% off. The coupon code is only available to the first 10 people to use it so register asap.

There’s more information about the conference at untethertalks.com.

You can register for the conference at this link.

So how did Motek get all those downloads? First, Screen Muncher wasn’t the first screenshot app for BlackBerry but it did capitalize on its famous “munch” sound and they gave the app life with the Screen Muncher character. It just goes to show that if you take the time to build in some smart marketing and branding into your app, it will definitely help downloads.

Something else that sets Screen Muncher apart from the rest is the way the company capitalized on a free version with a recognizable watermark. In speaking with Wes at BlackBerry Jam 2012, he told me that the watermark became pretty famous and helped to drive downloads. Users would see the Screen Muncher watermark and it would be a way of certifying that the screenshot is legitimate. Did you get a highscore in a game? Screen Munch it because I want to see that watermark. Sure, you could photoshop it, but it’s just a great example of another marketing initiative that turned this app into a movement versus just a simple screenshot app.

Check out all of Motek’s apps in its vendor page in App World at this link.

The story according to Sarah:

“RIM pulled an Oprah stunt at the GDC Choice Awards this year and gave free PlayBooks to everyone in the VIP seats, including Independent Games Festival nominees and their hangers-on (ie: me). I’d been curious about the device and wondered how easy it would be to port my popular strategy game Rebuild to the PlayBook using Adobe AIR. Turns out: extremely easy. After one day of project setup, a second day of development, and a couple days waiting for RIM to approve my account and the game, Rebuild is now available in the App World. To compare, I sent Apple an update for the iOS version before I started, and it’s still waiting for review a week later.

At first, I found it a bit of a pain to juggle security certificates and install a dev token on my device just to load my test app onto it, but once that was done, loading new versions onto the PlayBook for testing was a breeze. I can compile, package, install, and run my game in a debug mode in a few seconds with a single call. Overall the experience was MUCH easier than developing with Adobe AIR for iOS. And Rebuild runs like a dream.

So it looks like RIM is doing a great job and needs to continue to put more resources into the Adobe AIR SDK. Perhaps the company can work to lower those security certificate pains and perhaps kill the dev token process. Overall, this sounds like a really positive experience and a big win for both developers and RIM.”

Check out Sarah’s Rebuild game in App World at this link.

BlackBerry birthday cakes are sort of a “thing”.

2005

Golden Palace Casino Blackberry Version Reviewed – BlackBerry games didn’t look so bad considering it was 2005.
Why No Apple Support – A RIM employee tells BBCool that “There is currently no timeline set for the introduction of Mac versions of Intellisync or the BlackBerry Desktop Software.”
RIM Too Expensive – Standard & Poor’s Equity Research said Research In Motion “is growing faster than its peers.” and set a target price of $78-$85 on RIMM stock (currently trading at $13 in 2012).
How BlackBerry conquered the world – CNN writes about how RIM won Wall Street and gained 2M subscribers (amazing to think the company is now at 75M).
Rumored Specs on new BlackBerry ‘Electron’ – Whoa! The screen specs are insane! It has a 240×160 display with 65k colors!
RIM Balsillie to Give Keynote at Lehman Brothers’ Worldwide Wireless – Yikes, remember Lehman Brothers?

2006

Is the BlackBerry the “greatest Canadian invention”? – Possibly still true 6 years later.
RIM Responds to NTP - The patent trolls that RIM fought and eventually lost to. I’m sure Balsillie is still bitter he wasn’t able to crush them. Interesting to note that as of 2010, the company was still patent trolling.
RIM Exec David Heit Interviewed – Senior Product Manager for RIM says “We’re looking at voice-over-IP as a major direction, so that instead of giving an employee a desktop phone, you give them a Blackberry, so it’s a mobile phone device as well as a secure connection for email. And when you add the mobile application capability we’ve been talking about, then you’re really talking about true convergence.”, when asked about RIM’s future direction.
RIM Makes “Most Innovative Company” List – We hope this comes back with BB 10.
RIM co-CEO’s Chosen as Canadians of the Year – Must be tough to leave a legacy like this and feel pushed out of your company.
Mike Lazaridis: RIM’s focus is new products, partnerships and growing markets – RIM is “ready to tackle the consumer market” with 25% of BlackBerry users on BIS.

2007

Should Microsoft buy RIM? - If you’re a BlackBerry news reader, you’ve seen this same article a billion times over the past 7+ years.
We repeat, no threat from iPhone to the BlackBerry – Hmmm…we may have been off with this one.
BlackBerry Mascot gets a little brother – What ever happened to the walking BlackBerry mascots? The 9900 should get one.
Lazaridis at CTIA: BlackBerry is a “Platform” - Lazaridis was a smart guy and definitely knew where the company needed to go. Maybe it was more implementation than leadership.
RIM opens its doors to developers – Developers, remember this? “RIM has opened up multimedia API’s on both the Pearl and 8800 so that developers can create and mold and do whatever it takes to make some mind-blowing applications for us to utilize.”
EXCLUSIVE: The Next BlackBerry Browser – New doesn’t necessarily mean good. But hey, it was 2007 remember.
Viigo/BlackBerryCool to Go channel gets customizable – Remember Viigo? What happened to them? Not sure what they did for OS 5-7.
RIM’s stock breaks $100 – Come back please.
Web Desktop Manager available – Whatever happened to the web-based Desktop Manager?
BlackBerry Unite! to bring small groups together – Curious what happened to that product too.

2008

OS 4.5 in action – Remote email searching!
Official support forums launched – Huge tool for developers launches.
BlackBerry Cool Podcast: Episode 15 – Should we start Podcasting again? Rob Woodbridge is on this podcast from back when he was at Rove.
India’s Intelligence Bureau rejects RIM proposal – This fight will go on for a long time.
RIM to release clamshell flip phone codenamed Kickstart? – In hindsight, yes, RIM will launch a clamshell and it won’t do so well. At least we don’t think it did.
Questionable picture of touchscreen BlackBerry sends bloggers into tizzy – This image turned out to be real, and the phone turned out to be really lame. In some ways, the Storm was the beginning of RIM’s PR troubles.
BlackBerry Javelin due before Christmas? – I remember being really jazzed about upcoming BlackBerry launches in those days. Not so much when I know BlackBerry 10 is around the corner.
BlackBerry Storm Roundup (continuously updated!!) – Needless to say, we were very excited about the Storm.
The BlackBerry Storm can do Copy and Paste – It’s funny to think that this was a feature we actually needed to brag about.
RIM developing a BlackBerry Application Center – BlackBerry App World version 0.0.0.0.0.1.
Krakow calls BlackBerry Storm ‘Best BlackBerry ever made,’ Pogue calls it a ‘dud’ – “It truly is amazing!”

2009

Sorry Mike, the BlackBerry Storm is not a netbook – “I think I can put Netbooks in here [referring to the BlackBerry Storm]. These are Netbooks. They are just smaller.”
How RIM perfected the trackwheel – “What we found with high-speed photography was that there was no deflection in the wheel when it hit the surface. The wheel stayed totally rigid and that snapped it right off.”
BREAKING: RIM settles with OSC for $76 million, Balsillie to step down from board – Jim should have said “I’ll be back” in his best Arnold impression.
App World pricing structure revealed – Good thing this was changed. Now that it’s 2012, maybe RIM should update and have a $0.49 app category.
RIM officially names app store BlackBerry App World – the beginning of a new era on BlackBerry.
Research in Motion is selling copious smartphones despite economy – April 2009, RIM sells its 50 millionth BlackBerry!
What apps does Jim Balsillie have on his BlackBerry – What apps do you think he has now?
What do you want to know from RIM’s official BlackBerry blog? – Around the time when RIM launched its official blog.
Tungle unveils new ways to conveniently book meetings – This company was acquired by RIM 2 or so years later.
Increasing BlackBerry device memory for bigger and better apps – App World now handles all of this. Interesting step though.
RIM releases new tools for developers creating web apps – The Widgets to Webworks to PlayBook path for web apps has really evolved into something amazing.
Leaked pics of the BlackBerry Storm 2 9520 aka Odin – The Storm after the Storm.
Trusting 3rd Party BlackBerry Apps: What Can They Do? – One of my favorite articles ever on the site.
Stress Test: How long can the BlackBerry Bold 9700 play music? – The Bold 9900 has an awful battery life. The 9700 should have become the standard as the battery life was simply amazing.
The OS 5 Boot Test: Storm2 vs Storm 9530 vs Bold 9700 vs Bold 9000 – Crazy that this remains a problem even with OS 7. The PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 changes all of this.
The Three Rounds of the App Store Battle – Another great outside contributor article.

2010

BlackBerry Battery Cover Review: Bold vs Tour vs Curve vs Storm and more – Another problem RIM never really fixed. The battery cover on the 9900 is awful. Nobody can open it the first time they try. Tip: use a credit card.
Beta Review: Official BlackBerry Twitter Client from RIM – RIM launches its native Twitter client. Not sure how I feel about this to this day. Did RIM really need to build a Twitter app? The native integration could have been done by a third party surely.
Foursquare Updated to Version 1.7.0 – Now on App World! – Hey look, foursquare for BlackBerry launches on App World.
State of BlackBerry: Mike Lazaridis’ Speech and Where We Stand – A great roundup of facts about RIM as of April 2010 including “RIM has sold over 90 million BlackBerrys.”
2011
What BlackBerry OS 6 Means for Developers and Super Apps – There’s probably still a good 4-5 years of legacy apps that will be around. This is still relevant.
BlackBerry Torch 9800 Review: BlackBerry 6, Touchscreen, Keyboard and More – One of the longest hardware reviews on the site.
RIM Introduces BlackBerry Tablet AKA the BlackBerry PlayBook – This was really exciting when it launched. With OS 2, it feels like a totally different tablet.
RIM Announces BBM Social Platform for Super Apps with Integration APIs – One of the most powerful initiatives RIM launched for developers.
Dan Dodge, Co-Creator of QNX Talks PlayBook and the QNX OS – This is the beginning of something very interesting.
RIM Launches BlackBerry Ad Service to Help Developers Monetize Apps Better – Quite a few DevCon announcements that year.
Analysts Claim RIM is Dead but they Underestimate the QNX OS – Alec Saunders, before he was at RIM, had this to say about QNX “In layman’s terms, that means it’s more stable than LINUX, runs in less memory than any of LINUX, OS X, or Windows – even the embedded versions, pretty to look at for users, and easy to develop software for using skills that are relatively common in the industry. Oh, and did I mention that it sports a touch screen UI, and a fully integrated flash development environment?”.
QNX and RealVNC Team up for Terminal Mode: BlackBerry Automotive Integration – These stories will be much more prevalent in the coming years. The new QNX BlackBerry will be embedded everywhere.
RIM Officially Announces BlackBerry App World Desktop Storefront – There could be a lot more going on here. For example, social integration would be interesting.
LinkedIn App for BlackBerry Now Available for Torch and OS 6 Devices – Hard to believe LinkedIn dropped BlackBerry support after such a weak kick at the can. The app sucked and probably led them to just give up.

2011

RIM Introduces the BlackBerry Messenger Mobile Gifting Program – Cool idea, but have you used it?
BlackBerry App World 2.1 Live with Payment Service – A strong point RIM never got enough credit for.
BlackBerry PlayBook to Run iOS Apps – Great April Fool’s Day post.
The Air Canada Issue Has Nothing to Do With RIM – The remember when those RIM employees got wasted and freaked out on a plane? That was actually pretty badass.
RIM Gives Anonymous Response to Anonymous Open Letter – This article caused a lot of discussion on our site and probably a lot more at RIM.
BlackBerry PlayBook Native Email, Contacts and Calendar Screenshots and Details – This article made the rounds on every tech website in the galaxy. It was a first look at the native PIM apps and for some reason, it was at a demo for government employees. I don’t think they expected us.
RIM is Also Collecting Location of Its Users’ BlackBerrys But Doing it Right – Problem for Apple but not RIM.
RIM Sponsored We Day Brings 7 Thousand Youth Together to Fight Poverty #WeDay – A trip to Waterloo and it was really fun.
Alec Saunders Confirms Many Upcoming BBX Features – This is going to be huge news for the upcoming BB10 phones. They’ve got to have a Super App feel and not just a smaller PlayBook.
BatBerry Project Still Going Strong – Makes First Public Appearance – This is a project we’re keeping an eye on. It’s going to hopefully finish in 2012.
RIM Launches BBM Music for BlackBerry – After months of using it, not a fan. Music isn’t meant to be shared with a bunch of random strangers who don’t have the same taste in music.
Scoreloop Community Gaming SDK Now Available in Beta Zone – Scoreloop is now publicly available (March 2012) and hopefully more devs use it.
Mike Lazaridis and Alec Saunders Talk App World and Developer Community #BBDevCon – This is the time when Alec came in to really smash myths about BlackBerry and get the word out that development on BlackBerry can make you money.

We’re downloading the update right now. What are you waiting for? Go get it right now!

Check out our first look at BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2 native email, contacts and calendar.

Follow @blackberrycool and editor @kylemcinnes.

Download the BlackBerryCool app at this link http://www.joemobi.com/dl/1360/ .

The changelog is as follows:

All OS 7 devices supported
Push notifications
Category selection
Search blog posts
Removed old “pull” notifications (to save battery life, since swapping to push)
Thumbnail images added if blog has image
Article and Comments separated into “tabs”
Various bug fixes

UPDATED: The hidden icon is fixed.

If you’re an Android user, you can download the Android app that now has Push Notifications.

Stay tuned because a PlayBook version is coming.

You can also scan this QR Code to go to the download page:

Here is a transcript of some of the questions from the event where we learned about the PIM apps on PlayBook.

Q: If the BES server sits behind the firewall, and you’re concerned about security, are the two email accounts (the personal and the corporate) still separate? In the sense that if I want to send myself a note to my personal account it still goes through the Exchange Server outside the firewall, right?

A: Yeah, so the question was about security within the multiple emails. With this setup, if I send a message from my corporate account to my personal, is it still going back behind the firewall? Absolutely. The infrastructure is the exact same and we’re not doing anything to compromise security. When we get into the BlackBerry Balance portion of the presentation, we’ll talk about resonant data on the device how that is segmented off and protected. Even locally on the device you can’t copy and paste things from one perimeter into another. In that sense, yes, it would go back through the infrastructure, to your Exchange Server, and then follow the guidelines that you have set within your organization.

Q: What do you do about S/MIME?

A: S/MIME on the first iteration of the 2.0 software will not be available initially but will available shortly after.

Q: Will PlayBook 2.0 have the ability to color code the messages?

A: So the question is about setting a border color to denote whether it’s corporate or personal. I have not seen that on the PlayBook but granted I’m not on the final build. We’ll have to get back to that.

Q: Can you edit and spell check on the native email app?

A: Yes, absolutely. The logic we have on the BlackBerry in terms of type ahead and word prediction is all in the 2.0 code. You will have the spell check capabilities.

Q: How fast do the native PIM apps sync with your BlackBerry? Is there a delay?

A: It’s all relatively the same time. I haven’t noticed any delay on messages getting delivered to the PlayBook versus my BlackBerry. Most of the time it’s device, then shortly after PlayBook.

Followup Q: And it’s all the same Push infrastructure?

A: Yes. The infrastructure is essentially the same. The way it works on your BlackBerry is essentially the same as it works on your PlayBook. So the same secure, push channel that you’re accustomed to on your BlackBerry.

Q: Any difference in the ressource requirements on the server side?

A: We’re actually doing those tests now. One of the things that we’re improving is that today on BES you have a 2,000 user limit, with the new infrastructure we’re actually increasing that to several thousand more. We’re reducing the size of your infrastructure including unnecessary load and resources. While I don’t have final numbers on load balancing, the numbers that are coming in are next to nothing. So the normal 1 to 1 correlation to what you have.

Q: What about PIN messaging? As in PIN-to-PIN messaging. We didn’t see that.

A: Yes, and I won’t show you. I don’t believe PIN-to-PIN messaging is in the first iteration but I’ll have to check.

Q: What about Bridge?

A: In version 2.0 there are improvements to the speed of Bridge. There’s not many UI changes, just mostly improvement and small functionality. We’re not abandoning Bridge. While the 2.0 will have performance improvements there will be some updates down the road.

Q: Version 2.0 won’t have cellular connectivity?

A: So 2.0 is just software. The cellular devices or the “4G PlayBooks” will be available roughly around the 2.0 software release. The 2.0 software is designed to run on your current, WiFi only PlayBooks, but we will have 4G PlayBooks around the same time as that 2.0 software.

Q: In many government organizations we don’t have WiFi access. Everything is land based. So I rely on the Bridge for my functionality and we love the video chat but the problem is we can’t use it. Is there a way for us to get access to more of those apps through Bridge?

A: We’ve seen that already. The last update to Bridge allows some applications to use the connection to get out to the Internet. We’re going to of course increase the functionality of core apps to utilize Bridge.

Q: Is the PlayBook 4G being delayed?

A: We have been in testing for several months on 4G devices and on multiple carriers. Several groups are actively testing them and I have not heard of any delays. As of today (November 22nd), I have not heard anything that would put us off schedule from our early 2012 release.

Q: Will the PlayBook come in other sizes?

A: Of course we’re obviously investigating sizes and what makes sense for a larger screen. So yes, I don’t know the exact size and I can’t show you anything, but we’re looking at other sizes.

Q: Does the 4G capability imply voice functionality?

A: Not at first, besides the video chat. There is no ability to make a call from PlayBook to landline call. That’s not the final answer though. Initial release will be strictly data and video chat. There are also third party apps that will let you make a call from PlayBook to landline but not from RIM.

Q: Current video chat – can it be extended from PlayBook to something else?

A: We have teams that are working right now to make it an endpoint to a corporate video chat solution. So we’re in discussions about how that’s going to work. There’s definitely a roadmap for video chat that lets it do more than just device to device.

Q: What about segregating the Address Book by corporate and personal?

A: From a group perspective? The contacts are in one general list and there’s no way to see if they’re a personal or business contact. The device will know based on the service it’s pulling from. Any new contact will be corporate by default (I believe).

Q: What about synchronizing multiple Address Books into one?

A: I have not tried it so I can’t give you a definite answer just yet. I imagine it would still just dump it as one Address Book but I’d have to verify.

Be sure to read our post with screenshots of the upcoming PlayBook PIM apps.

Size, Weight and Feel

The Blackberry Torch 9850/9860 has a really sleek design and a refined look. When you first pick it up it immediately feels great in your hands, especially being held horizontally as it has new curved ends for an all new feel for gaming and typing with the full screen keyboard. It’s a very respectable screen size at 3.7” and the solid design make the phone feel like it was well made and not with cheap plastics. The battery door is made of metal and gives it a nice solid feel however, it does add a little to the weight. Weighing in at 4.76oz it weighs 1oz or about 20% less than the Torch 9810.

I’ve put this device in the hands of several people (including my wife who has a Style 9670) and asked them what they thought of the size, weight and feel. I received very positive feedback from them and they all seemed to really like the weight. They commented on the fact that it felt like a really solid phone. Even my wife said that she doesn’t like touchscreen devices but she really enjoys the styling and the placement of the buttons; especially the full lock key on the top of the device.

Compass

It really makes me happy to see that RIM is finally putting useful technology into their phones and listening to what people want. The Torch 9850/9860 comes fully loaded with a digital compass that enables the use of applications like Wikitude’s augmented reality application.

As great as this feature is, I really don’t think that it’s been perfected yet as I found myself getting quite frustrated having to calibrate the compass several times when trying to use it. I found myself flipping and rotating the phone while walking down the street. I was getting very weird looks from people wondering what the heck I was doing to my phone.

Hardware

RIM has finally upgraded the processor family in the new lineup of blackberrys. In the last generation of phones the fastest processor was 624Mhz and now the slowest processor is 800Mhz, while the higher end phones (Torch, Bold) run a beefed up 1.2Ghz chip. They’ve also added more memory to the new phones, actually the Bold 9900 and Torch 9810 come with 8GB of internal memory, however, the Torch 9850 only comes with 4GB of internal memory. I know it supports up to a 32GB card but come on. Why give one of the higher end BlackBerrys only 4GB of internal memory? Especially when recording HD video takes up so much space, this just doesn’t make any sense to me with memory being so cheap these days.

Screen

I’ll be the first to admit that touchscreen devices for RIM haven’t always been great. I’m very confident in saying that the Torch “Touch” 9850 is by far the best full touchscreen device that they’ve ever made. It finally all comes together, having the new 1.2Ghz processor with OS 7 and Liquid Graphics makes this phone a joy to use and the quality is finally up to much higher standards. It has a large, High-Res 3.7” 800×480 WVGA Transmissive TFT LCD display that produces an extremely crisp and clear picture that will make it hard to put this device down. Rocking out 252ppi (pixels per inch) adds a whole new dimension of clarity that really brings this phone up to standards with the current cell phone market. Sliding through menus and pinching & zooming is a very pleasant experience which I really enjoy showing off to my friends and family. Using the Torch 9800 for scrolling through pictures, menus or anything that would require fluidity is almost painful after using this phone. All in all a great screen that is a huge step up from any previous device.

Input (Virtual Keyboard)

RIM said that they’ve improved the touch keyboard for a better experience and more accuracy. I haven’t really experienced this. The keyboard is still really great and I don’t really have a lot of bad things to say about it but I really don’t think it’s that much improved over previous ones. The Torch 9850 being a full screen device the on-screen keyboard is larger and does feel more accurate. Overall, it’s still missing that refined touch. I still find myself making spelling mistakes and auto-correct just isn’t good enough to know what I’m trying to say. Having a bigger on-screen keyboard and larger device that is conformed to your hands for quick to thumb typing is still a better experience than typing on my Torch 9800.

I did have one major issue with the keyboard that I really hope they fix. In the middle of a text message I would get an error that said “device input error, restarting device”. I thought that it was a one time thing however, it happened to me a few times and OS updates never fixed it. I hope in the next version of the OS RIM get this issue resolved.

Battery Door

Keeping with the theme of full touch screen devices having a metal battery door the Torch 9850 doesn’t change things up. The door is made of a strong, but thin metal that really gives the device a nice feel with a coating that almost feels like satin. The metal door is very easy to remove with the simple push of a button and just as easy to replace. Sporting a polished chrome BlackBerry logo on the back, this battery door really does give it a more refined feel and makes it feel more solid. I’m definitely a fan.

Blackberry OS 7

When I first got my Torch 9800 with OS 6 I had really high expectations and was hoping for a really great device with a much needed update to outdated software that was falling behind the pack.

Unfortunately to say, I wasn’t super impressed with OS 6. The dpi on the screen was low, the motions were choppy and loading applications seems to take a lot longer than expected. I’m very happy to say that all of those issues are a thing of the past and OS 7 has really impressed me and given me some insight of great things to come from BlackBerry.

When I tested the new Torch 9860 at the BlackBerry OS 7 release event in downtown Toronto the representative told me that the web browsing experience was about 40% faster compared to OS 6. I disagree. I thought it was about 80-100% faster, depending on what I was loading. Finally a much improved and better experience browsing on a BlackBerry, as this one probably one of the biggest complaints for BB fans. Also, with HTML 5 support you really can’t go wrong.

The icons while similar to the previous ones have been refreshed with a new feel and new design. Full of detail and color they work hand in hand with the high res and high DPI screen to bring a more refined look.

The voice search is a great new feature in OS 7 giving a “hands free” option for fast searching on your device. Press the microphone icon in the search and you’ll be prompted to say a search word or phrase, Only about a second later your results will be on the screen. Testing this several times I must say that I’m actually really impressed. If there’s little to no background noise this feature was 100% accurate and about 90% with medium to high background noise. Very respectable. What’s needed is for RIM to make the voice a little more user friendly and connect actions. See more about this from this article on BlackBerryCool.

Internal Specifications

Screen/Sensors

TFT capacitive touchscreen with 16M colors
480 x 800 pixels, 3.7 inches (252 ppi)
Optical trackpad
Multi-touch input method
Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
Magetometer (Digital Compass)

Communication

CDMA 800 / 1900 / CDMA2000 1xEV-DO
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 / HSDPA 2100 (EDGE ONLY in Canada)
v2.1 with A2DP + EDR
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n (2.4GHz)
Full GPS + A-GPS

Media

5 MP, 2592?1944 pixels, autofocus
Geo-tagging, continuous auto-focus, image stabilization, face detection
720p HD Video recording

Battery

Li-Ion 1230 mAh
Talk Time – up to 6 h 50 min
Music playback – up to 50 hours

Memory

4GB of Storage (This should be 8GB like other OS7 Devices)
768MB of RAM
Up to 32GB with microSD card

Processor

1.2GHz processor, Qualcomm MSM8655 Snapdragon

Media

This device is truly a media powerhouse with an upgraded 5mp camera with autofocus, HD 720p video recording and a refreshed music player. It has all of the bells and whistles to keep you entertained for hours. I’ll start with the camera. The Torch 9800 took good pictures however the 9850 takes better pictures. I find the lighting better and the pictures are just slightly better quality all together.

When I heard that the new OS7 devices were going to have 720p HD video I was very excited because the standard 640 x 480 video was sort of terrible. The video quality is finally clear and smooth along with decent sound getting slightly distorted when what you’re recording is very loud, like at at a concert. For an HD camera built into a cell phone you really can’t go wrong.

The built in music player has also been refreshed and has a much more fluid feel and is incredibly smooth when scrolling through music. Loading up the album covers still takes a second to load initially but once it’s up its good to go. One thing I really like is fact that when you are listening to a song you can scroll through the album covers while still listening to your first song. If you like what you see more than what’s playing just click on it then it begins to play. A new feature in the music player that I found is when your playing a song the artist name and album are now clickable buttons. When you click on artist it shows all songs by that artist, same with the album, it brings up all of the songs you have in that particular album. I find this makes searching for your favorite songs much easier.

General use

Phone quality is very good. I think this is the first phone I’ve had that people don’t complain about not hearing me clearly or asking me to repeat myself several times (which I hate). The speakerphone is quite good as well. I’ve noticed that there is some type of sound amplification that kicks in after the first ring and I’ll have to turn the volume down or it gets distorted and sounds terrible.

SMS and MMS are still very easy to use, which I believe is why a lot of people use BlackBerry. Big buttons on the bottom of the texting screen allow you to add attachment easily, view contact info or even move on to the next unread item in your SMS inbox. BBM 6 is very cool with OS 7 and with Wikitude, you now you can see your BBM contacts that are in your vicinity.

BlackBerry is trying very hard to integrate BBM more into people’s lives, and with the recent release of apps like BBM Music, it’s proof that they are going in the right direction. One massive thing that was fixed with BBM 6 is scrolling in your contact list when it’s expanded used to be incredibly choppy and laggy. I’m happy to say that this has been 100% resolved with the new version of BBM, Liquid Graphics and the new hardware.

Conclusions

Pros:

New design, great feel
OS 7 + New hardware = All around better experience
HD Video recording
Auto focus camera
Digital compass

Cons:

Only 512MB Storage, other OS7 phones have 768MB
No NFC
Digital Compass need calibrating constantly
Battery life – Lower capacity battery than previous phones
Only runs EDGE on GSM Mode (9850 Only)
Tiny mute button

Final thoughts

All in all this is a great addition to the OS 7 line up. Though there are a few things that could be improved upon before the BBX phones come out. I think they could have a better quality chrome bezel around the phone as mine started to peel up within a couple of weeks with regular use.

Launching applications on the Torch 9850 is much better than any previous BlackBerry. The lag between clicking the icon and the launch of the app is now a fraction of a second. RIM is still catching up with the Android / iPhone competition in this department. Until BBX comes out, we’re still stuck with J2ME-based phones that don’t handle the whole app experience very well.

RIM has been judged pretty harshly since the release of these phones and people claim to be let down by RIM. I disagree. I think this is a small leap forward into what we will see from RIM in the near future: a great device with a solid OS. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the best full touchscreen device that RIM has released and I’m excited to see the next generation BlackBerrys.

Fine tuning with the new technology will be key if RIM ever wants people actually using these features. I eventually gave up on having to calibrate the compass and it was very frustrating. I still see the hour glass every now and again, and I still need to pull the battery about every 4-5 days. App World bogs down the device, and there is minor checkerboarding in the web browser. I’ve learned to accept these quirks as I really love the whole BlackBerry experience. These are all things that I hope RIM has solved in the new, highly anticipated BBX platform.

I would definitely recommend this device to anyone looking for a little more touchscreen experience from their current Torch 9800.

There was no demo given of the new BlackBerry PlayBook Video Chat app so we can’t confirm any of the features. What we can speculate about is that because the Video Chat app now leverages the PlayBook’s PIN, we can assume that the experience of adding people to Video Chat will be much more connected. It doesn’t take much imagination to think RIM will allow you to tap a PlayBook recognized PIN and simply select “Add to Video Chat”. Again, we can’t confirm this but it seems reasonable.

The email client on the PlayBook is simply awesome. RIM has taken the time to create an email experience on the tablet that feels like the smartphone experience, but takes advantage of the tablet’s larger screen. The email experience on your tablet has all the features you would expect including read, write, zoom in and out of email, mark priority etc. The demo of the email experience looks ready for launch and there’s little doubt that RIM will hit the expected February 17th launch date.

The calendar experience on BlackBerry has a fun tablet twist to it too. When you’re really busy on a particular day, the calendar numbers get bigger giving you a quick glance at what your day looks like.

The contacts section of the PlayBook is powered by Gist and if you’ve downloaded the Gist app for your smartphone, you will see it’s a very similar experience. The Gist element is great on a tablet because with all the added screen real estate, you can really delve into a contact and learn more about them without straining your eyes reading a lot of details.

We’re looking forward to when all of this launches on February 17th, 2012. Also mentioned at the event, was that the PlayBook BlackBerry keyboard accessory that we’ve seen a few pictures and video of is coming “early 2012″. RIM can’t push this keyboard out soon enough. It’s going to be the ultimate tool in leaving your laptop behind. More pics below. Let us know if you have questions.

The Bold 9790 is exactly what we love about RIM and BlackBerry. It combines the fast, super-efficient qualities of a QWERTY BlackBerry, and provides a touchscreen experience that comes in handy when navigating apps and menu structures. The fact that this powerful device will also come at a lower price point means that even those on a budget will be able to afford it.

There isn’t much to say about this BlackBerry without going into a full review. A brief experience with the keyboard was very pleasant and while it had a bit of a different feel to it than the Bold 9900 (more of a Curve experience reminiscent of the chicklit keys), it was still awesome.

The fact that you get a Bold 9900-style experience in a smaller form factor at a cheaper price point is incredible. Developers and some industry analysts may complain that it’s continually fragmenting the market, but from a consumer standpoint that doesn’t matter if developers are porting their apps. BlackBerry OS 7 will still have a significant lifespan regardless of BBX, and we expect most developers to make their apps compatible. Many OS 6 apps work just fine in OS 7 and require no extra development work. In the end, the Bold Touch 9790 will surely be a hit in Asian markets, as well as in North America where consumers want a great BlackBerry experience at a lower price point.

NOTE: We claim that the price will be lower but nothing has been announced. We’re simply making the assumption based on the fact that RIM has said during our hands-on that it expects them to be cheaper, but in the end it’s up to the carriers.

What sticks out most about a touchscreen BlackBerry is the fact that RIM is making a device that does not have a keyboard, something that is a core advantage of BlackBerry devices. One would think that a company that specializes in keyboards would be an industry leader when it comes to virtual keyboards, but this hasn’t been the case. The first Storm had a frustrating screen that wouldn’t let you type as fast as you wanted. The Storm2 tried to improve on the device by having multiple contact points, but it didn’t really help. Now, with the Storm3 and Curve Touch, RIM has an all touch device with nothing that really differentiates it from the competition. It’s almost as though RIM has given up on the virtual keyboard experience but its simply making all touch devices because market research dictates they should. This doesn’t seem like a good way to run a company.

The virtual keyboard experience on the Curve Touch and all modern BlackBerry virtual keyboards simply isn’t good enough for anyone that is serious about being fast and efficient with their device. The experience feels much slower for someone that is used to leveraging the power of the keyboard to get things done faster. Here are some simple ways a virtual keyboard makes the BlackBerry slower:

You can’t use Universal Search without first pressing the Search icon. With a physical keyboard, you simply start typing from the homescreen. This isn’t the case with a touchscreen and searching in general is much slower with the keyboard.

When you’re inside an app, you can’t navigate as fast. To navigate 200 BBM contacts, you have to be able to just press the first letter of their name. In Twitter, you may find yourself pressing ‘t’ to get to the top of the stream. You can’t do this with a touch device without first accessing the keyboard in the menu. Even then, it’s slower.

For someone who does a lot of typing on their device, my brief experience with the Curve Touch was really disappointing. There are constant headaches such as the fact that the virtual keyboard doesn’t change based on what fields you are filling out. The keyboard should know you’re in an email field and put the @ symbol front and center; but it doesn’t. That being said, if you don’t use the keyboard then the added screen real estate is wonderful. This is probably the target market of the device but as someone who is clearly not the target market, it’s hard for my first impressions to be anything but negative. If I could somehow just look at this device from the perspective of someone who purely consumes content, I would probably be really happy with the layout and design.

The one positive thing I can say about the virtual keyboard software is that RIM gives you the option to enter text in either full keyboard, reduced keyboard (think Pearl) or T9 (double tap). This is helpful as a reduced keyboard is pretty good for entering common text. The problem is when you try and type something like “Narnia” in reduced text, it’s nearly impossible and you have to switch to full keyboard. This shouldn’t happen.

We’ll have a full review eventually, but until then, my first impressions of the device have less to do with the Curve Touch itself, but more to do with a beef with RIM’s disappointing virtual keyboards. The company has been working on virtual keyboard technology since the launch of the first Storm over 3 years ago. RIM seems to have not made enough progress in the virtual keyboard software department.

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We’ve updated the BlackBerryCool native app to support Disqus comments as well as some bug fixes. The app looks a little nicer too although the icon isn’t great if you’re using a dark wallpaper. The BlackBerryCool app also supports Android, so if you hit the download link or scan the QR code, you can grab the Android version.

Press Menu > Check for Update to update your app. Or go to joemobi.com/dl/1360 from your BlackBerry browser to download OTA.

Being shipped a new device that looked nearly identical to my current Torch 9800 only worsened my fears. The body of the phone seems to be cut from the same mold. It’s such a mirror image of the Torch 9800 that only Torch owners will know you even got a new device. If you’re one of those people who feels the need to show off your new phone you’ll probably feel unfulfilled with the new Torch.

For those who care more about actual performance, this is the device for you. The new Torch is nearly twice the phone that the old Torch was. This has to be the most significant update with the smallest jump in model number I have ever seen. After a week of using the new Torch, I found myself eating my words because my faith in team BlackBerry had been restored.

Better processor: more multitasking

I was a big fan of the Torch 9800 but I found it a little underwhelming when it came to battery life and multitasking. The processor on the Torch 2 runs quite a bit faster than the old Torch 9800’s. Clocking in at 1.2GHz, it’s almost double the rate of the Torch 9800’s 624MHz processor while maintaining some pretty decent battery life. Counting Megahertz is somewhat futile when comparing smartphones; one chip’s 624MHz can potentially outperform another’s 800 MHz. It’s more about how the chip works in conjunction with all the other engineering elements.

I’m not sure if I’m able to say that the new Torch is twice as fast but I am willing to put myself on the line for saying that it’s at least 50% faster than it’s predecessor.

Keep in mind that the Torch 9810 is still new and has yet to be fully optimized. When I first got the 9800, there was an OS update that came a month after launch that optimized battery, cut boot times in half and made navigation a bit smoother and more responsive. Right now my Torch 9810 has what seems to be a 3-minute boot time that I hope will be cured in the first update.

Liquid Graphics: OS lag reduced to acceptable levels

My biggest criticism of the Torch 9800 was that the extra flair put into the animated navigation was laggy. Users could really tell that they were causing a delay because actions were carried out about a second after you made them. I noticed the delay most when I wanted to mark my messages as read, I would have to wait for the OS animation to complete or the message will still be marked unread after exiting back into the messages list. Small stuff I know, but waiting for a computer for the sole reason of “seeing a pretty fade” is just bad design.

I know that all this OS glitter is something that consumers apparently demand. Why bother animate a smooth transition between two screens if you can just cut there? If I could turn off all the swipes and fades in favor of a less resource-intense cut, I would.

All this to say that Liquid Graphics has corrected the noticeable lag between OS transitions, and improved response time for swipe-based navigation, as well as pinch to zoom navigation.

Design: exactly the same as the Torch 9800

I’m very pleased that they didn’t change the design. The upside is all the advantages of the old Torch remain: a well-balanced, large touch-screened, keyboard-driven super-phone. Your old Torch 9800’s cases, skins, battery doors, Micro SD cards, batteries, data cables and chargers are all compatible with the Torch 9810.

A couple of things they have improved are the lightweight metallic body and the new and improved slider hinge. The new Torch is now a bit lighter, more rigid and it takes a lot less coordination to open.

The white space represents the Torch 9800 screen resolution

Display: 3.2 inch diagonal touch screen display with more pixel density

The New torch has a 640×480 display, up from the 9800’s 480×360 display. The display is about as bright and you probably won’t be able to tell too much of a difference between the two models until you realize that your font is a couple of points bigger than what is was on the old Torch.

If you love tiny fonts and packing as much detail as you can on to a mobile screen, you’ll be thrilled about the new Torch’s increased pixel density. There are close to 80 percent more pixels on the 9810 and I didn’t consider the 9800 to be lacking in this department at all.

Optical trackpad: still awesome

There is nothing to report here except for that since the dawn of smartphones, RIM has continually developed some of the best controls schemes designed specifically for mobile. Some users still feel nostalgia for the old scroll wheel, and I think everyone can agree that the new trackpad was an incredible upgrade to the sometimes-temperamental multi-directional scroll ball.

More app memory and more on-board storage

The Torch 9800 had 512MB of application ROM while the Torch 9810 boasts 768MB. With 50% more installed app memory, you can install a few more apps and games before noticing those extra-long boot times. The on-board drive space has been doubled too with 8GB for photos, music and other files. The Torch 9810 has a MicroSD slot that can accept a big 32GB card, bringing the total storage up to 40GB. While this is an improvement, it seems like storage is fast becoming a cloud-based service and we’re no longer concerned with RIM’s choice of SD Cards.

New: Magnetometer

A new addition the Torch 9810’s swiss army knife of features is the magnetometer. This new hardware will pave the way for Augmented Reality apps as well as better navigation apps. The two apps of note are the first party Compass app and the Wikitude augmented reality suite. It seems the software that powers the magnetometer needs a lot of work as I find that it asks me to recalibrate the compass every time I start a magnetometer-app, and several times while using the app too.

Camera and Video

While the old and new Torch both sport a 5 megapixel camera, the new Torch has some under the hood upgrades. Face detection allows the autofocus to choose faces to focus on rather than a distant light bulb that you unintentionally centered.
Also the video recording got a significant boost. The Torch 9810 can record in 720p (1280×720), up from VGA (640×480).

The camera sensor uses a CMOS sensor. CMOS is a great sensor with the exception of taking pictures or shooting video with a lot of motion. When there’s a lot of motion, the top part of the photo gets recorded before the bottom part and your image gets skewed. Same thing happens for video too, a round ball will turn oval when traveling quickly. This isn’t criticism so much as the limitations of CMOS in general. This type of distortion is called Rolling Shutter Distortion.

I love the new 720p video recording. The “send to” menu item is also a nice touch. Directly sending a 720p video to your YouTube account is a feature that is sure to see a lot of use.

Click here for a larger image.

Navigation nirvana: Universal Search

Universal Search has changed the way I access my BlackBerry. Introduced in BlackBerry OS 6, Universal Search allows a user to simply type in a word or two and your BlackBerry will present you with a screen full of highly-contextual options.
Begin typing a person’s name and the BlackBerry will show you the communications, social networking posts, calendar events and all the emails you’ve exchanged with them separated by accounts.

The big improvement OS 7 has made in this regard is how it lets developers tap into Universal Search by using something called Extend Search. This allows users to specifically search using any search engine they please, or specifically search within any app. The extended searches appear right below the universal search results and works wonders for reducing the time it takes to access the information you need.

RIM has also introduced Voice Activated Search that takes a sample of your voice and sends it to a RIM server to decipher it and turn it into text. It takes about 2 or 3 seconds for it to do it’s thing, definitely faster than typing on your BlackBerry with one hand.

These features are not unique to the 9810 but rather come with BlackBerry 7. For more about cool features of BlackBerry 7, check out this link.

App World: available apps

With every new device there is always a two-month period in which very few apps have been ported. As of the writing of this article (August 2011) there are 13402 apps, 1308 games and 7083 themes available for the Torch 9800. Compare that to The Torch 9810’s 1990 apps, 169 games, and zero themes.

I’m not sure what RIM can do to have more apps ready for new devices when they launch but it wouldn’t hurt to try something like making the emulators available for developers earlier.

Faster network: better browsing

So the Torch Webkit browser now supports HTML 5 sites as well as JIT (just in time) javascript acceleration. I really noticed the HTML 5 content right away because embedded YouTube videos would load on-page as opposed to taking me into the YouTube viewer. I also noticed that the faster network connection meant no buffering when accessing multimedia content.

The documentation says that BlackBerry 7 gets up to 30% faster browsing than speeds than BlackBerry 6 and up to twice as fast as OS 5. I didn’t really notice any speed difference whatsoever between BlackBerry 6 and BlackBerry 7. Maybe it’s the rendering of the page that’s bit faster but the act of waiting for stuff to request then load is still as slow as dial-up.

The Torch 9810 has an HSPA+ radio, which is a small leap ahead of the 9800’s 3G radio. For me, this has breathed new life in to my BlackBerry Playbook’s Bridge Browser. I noticed lower access times, actually watchable online videos and tolerable wait times while loading web sites. As a result I’m packing the Playbook with me now instead of leaving it on my desk or coffee table.

Full version of Docs to go comes standard

RIM has included a full version of Docs to go on the Torch 9810. Right out of the box editing and viewing of office documents re-affirms BlackBerry’s business edge. I think that this is the first usable version of Docs To Go because of the new screen size. I’ll have no problem emailing myself a document or spreadsheet and working on it as I travel.

Should I upgrade?

If you use your phone to show off your sense of gadget style, are hoping to upgrade to BlackBerry OS 8 or buy a phone every second year, this is probably a model that you can skip.

If you spend more than 20 minutes per day on your BlackBerry, buy a new phone every year, are owed a device upgrade from your carrier, are a fan of the Torch 9800, or own a BlackBerry Playbook, you should without hesitation get the new Torch. It performs so you can outperform.