[rwp-review id=”0″]
A little over 8 years ago the first BlackBerry smartphones made their debut with the Curve series. I was in school at the time and I got to witness first hand the fanatical craze that plagued the students and teachers as everyone did their best to get a BlackBerry. What was so fascinating about these devices from a company called Research In Motion? Did they do your homework for you? Did they transform into a laser pistol? No, the initial surge of popularity I saw was attributed to the attractive social plan that at the time was locked to BlackBerry users. For only AED 50 a month, students could have unlimited access to constantly chat with their friends via BlackBerry Messenger (BBM).
Fast forward to the future and RIM has rebranded to BlackBerry Ltd, the company was suffering from diminishing stock prices and was on the verge of fading to obscurity before pulling out their trump card: the BlackBerry Priv. Centered around Privacy and Privilege, can the first Android powered smartphone by the company turn the tide?
Design
The Priv weighs 192 grams and its dimensions measure at 147 x 77.2 x 9.4 mm, though when you slide the screen up to unveil the physical keyboard it gains a couple of centimetres. And boy that sliding screen. While people flocking to cinemas over the past weekend described Star Wars: The Force Awakens as a trip to the past, I have to say that the sliding screen of the Priv hit me with a force of nostalgia J.J Abrams couldn’t conjure up.
After spending maybe an half an hour aimlessly sliding up and down the screen, I got back to looking the Priv over; the power cum lock-screen button is located on the left side of the phone which got some getting used to, with the volume rocker on the right side of the phone. The volume rocker itself is two separate buttons with a button in between which, after hours of inspection, I couldn’t figure the use for other than to open the notifications dialog to switch modes. The 18 megapixel rear facing camera is near the top and situated at the back of the phone, flanked by two led flashlights. The secondary 2 MP camera is on the front and at the top right. At the bottom of the Priv, at the base of the physical keyboard, is the loudspeaker, with the earphone jack placed at the bottom of the phone, near the micro USB port. The fact that the USB port and the 3.5 mm jack are both on the same plane is great when you find yourself wanting to listen to some tunes and having to charge the Priv whilst it’s in your pocket.
The big thing about the design if of course the physical keyboard which slides out. I assume that with enough practice and constant usage you will find yourself typing faster with the physical keyboard but I found switching from a virtual onscreen keyboard to a physical one quite the challenge, especially since the physical one is quite small for my fat thumbs. Furthermore, using the physical keyboard makes it quite uncomfortable to use the touchscreen in tandem; for instance typing something into a search bar and then selecting an option from a drop down list. As a result I found myself often reverting back to the touch keyboard due to its ease of use. On another note, the Priv gets a little top heavy when sliding out the keyboard. However a great feature of the keyboard is the cursor scroll mode that can be enabled by lightly double tapping on the keys; the keyboard will then serve as a trackpad.
That said, the Priv’s top half slides along aluminium and it feels springy and responsive, but rigid enough that you won’t find yourself doing it accidentally, though it may happen when it gets stuck on some threads in your jean’s pockets!
The Priv also has a curved display, though due to the sliding mechanism, it doesn’t wrap around as completely as the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and doesn’t have too many functions other than to slide out a menu that let’s you see a plethora of different information such as unread messages, calendar updates and tasks that are due. The other feature the curved side offers is a bar that creeps up the side to show the Priv’s charge status while plugged in.
Display
The Priv comes with a 5.4 inch, 1440 x 2560 pixels, AMOLED capacitive touchscreen that supports upto 10 fingers. The screen is also coated in a Corning Gorilla Glass 4. The 540 PPI is due to the screen also having a QUAD HD resolution, meaning text and images are usually crisp and clear. The viewing angles aren’t bad, though the screen is incredibly reflective to the point you have to turn the brightness all the way up just to not see your silhouette on the lock screen.
Camera
The BlackBerry packs a 18 MegaPixel camera which sounds impressive but there is one major letdown that shows how distant BlackBerry is with the modern times; the camera software is abysmal. While it does have features like phase detect autofocus and dual color LED flash it is ultimately a let down. While the lens is quick to focus, the images it churns out are riddled with noise and blemishes. The automatic white balance is also a bit unreliable, and there’s no way to adjust it yourself. While you can adjust the aspect ratio, you can’t adjust the resolution as you can on a multitude of other phones; you can just choose between a “fine” or a “standard” photo quality.
However, the video options are quite something; you can choose between 1080p / 30fps, 1080p/ 60fps and lastly 4K at 30fps. There is a video stabilisation option but it’s only available for the 720p and 1080p and then only for the 30fps options.
Performance
The Priv packs quite a punch, though it isn’t an instant K.O. The smartphone is powered by a 64-bit, Snapdragon 808 hexa-core System-on-Chip. There’s a dual-core 1.8GHz CPU which is used for high intensity tasks, and a 1.44GHz quad-core CPU that’ll be slower, but more energy efficient, for general phone use. I never experienced any substantial lag on the Priv, even when running hardware intensive games like Dead Trigger 2, which ran flawlessly. Helping it run is 3 gigs of RAM. The Priv does however get quite hot at times.
Running it through AnTuTU gave it a performance score of 51,878.
The battery is a Non-removable Li-Ion 3410 mAh battery that boasts 24 hours worth of talktime on 3G. Average usage of it resulted in me using it for nearly 20-ish hours before I went in hunt of a micro USB cable. Furthermore It also supports wireless charging.
Software
It runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, and will eventually make the move to Android 6.0 Marshmallow .
Before you groan and moan endlessly about the end of an era, take note that an Android-powered BlackBerry means access to the Google Play Store and all of the apps therein. A lack of apps has been BlackBerry’s weakness for years, so this is a great step forward.
What’s different about the Priv though is that BlackBerry has committed to rolling out monthly security updates as Google discovers and addresses vulnerabilities. Furthermore, BlackBerry states that In cases where a vulnerability can’t wait for a monthly update, they will also be able to roll out hotfixes directly to the Priv — the company has pledged to work with carriers on delivering updates, but also has the ability to circumvent them, and directly patch the Priv if necessary (which is quite badass in my opinion).
There are some other extras for the Priv’s software, one being the bar along the curved edge that shows the charging status when the Priv is plugged in. When the screen is off, a percentage is also visible as well as an estimate as to how long it will take to fully charge.
Another Priv unique feature is the productivity tab that slides out from the right curved edge. You can change its size, get rid off it or use it to quickly peruse through unread messages, calendar events, tasks you have yet to do or quickly call one of your starred contacts.
But one of the more important software changes is the BlackBerry DTEK software, a security grading piece of code that will scold you for not setting a password, tell you what permissions you’ve given apps you’ve downloaded and so on. In a world where we often unknowingly hand off private information to people just because we skip through the Terms & Conditions, DTEK is great. The BlackBerry Hub is the other important Priv unique piece of software. It is the nexus of every single notification you will ever get on your Priv, all in an inbox like list. As far as being organised goes, this is great. Too often I’ve received an important message on Google Hangouts, only to swipe away the notification and ultimately forget about ever getting one. With the BlackBerry Hub however, it’s all there laid out for me.
Final Verdict
While this is the first BlackBerry phone I’ve ever had, I have kept upto date with news from the ailing company and as a result I know that it stands high in regard compared to BlackBerry’s previous attempts at smartphones. I’m glad BlackBerry took the “if you can’t beat em, join em” saying to heart by adopting Android but I wish they ditched the physical keyboard along with the old OS. In an era where displays take up most of the phone we should relegate physical keyboards to tombs in for Lara Croft to find. Another thing to note is that while BlackBerry is trying to get in with the times, they’ve failed rather miserably when it comes the Priv’s camera software, it’s nothing short of heinous and the video features are its only saving grace. Another thing to note is that for a phone that’s privacy centered, where’s the fingerprint reader? When you have devices like the LG V10 out, you’re going to need a lot more than a keyboard (though sliding it out will never lose its charm).
