tech talk
Jury still out on BB10 The much-anticipated BlackBerry 10 is finally on the shelves in Doha. The smartphone company formerly known as RIM released it in six different cities across the world on January 30, and Rory Coen was lucky enough to be present at the regional launch in Dubai. So what were his first impressions of the new device?
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etting a new phone can be quite a stressful ordeal. It’s never fluid and seamless, that’s for sure. In fact, after 12 years of experiencing various handheld devices, I can now say that the average person goes through seven distinct phases after acquiring a new smartphone. I know I do, anyway, and I’m pretty average. Let’s analyse these steps through the lens of my new BlackBerry Z10. 1. Excitement: Who isn’t excited to get a new phone, be it smart or dumb. I had been using the BlackBerry Curve – a fantastic piece of kit, by the way – for the best part of a year before I was invited to try the new BlackBerry Z10. This model is of course the touch-screen – the Q10 has the physical keyboard but hasn’t been released onto the market yet. The Q10 was the one I wanted, but they gave me the Z10. I heard stories of faster Internet speeds, more fluid navigation between the applications, an innovative “hub” where I would control all my applications for one menu. I was terribly excited. 2. Confusion: When you turn on your new phone for the first time, everything confuses you. “What’s this for?”, “Why would I want to do that?”, “Where’s this application, where’s that application?”. It’s a nightmare. “Why are they making smaller SIM cards?”, “Why do I need to register for this?”, “What’s Development Mode?”, “How do I transfer my contacts from my old phone to this one?”. The list is endless – it’s goes on until infinity. You’re straight onto the Inter-
7 6 Qatar Today
MARCH 2013
net reading reviews – putting “BlackBerry 10 useless” into Google to see what comes out. What’s worse is that the BlackBerry officials told us at the launch that What’s App would be in the BlackBerry World app store, so you can understand my confusion when I saw that it in fact was not. 3. Disappointment: So when you don’t fully come out of your confused state, you transition pretty swiftly into Phase 3. You’re in shock. You’re so disappointed with this new acquisition. It was supposed to be your new best friend. It was supposed to solve all the problems with your old phone. It was to be quicker and more reliable. You can’t get used to the new touch-screen keypad. It’s taking forever to write one simple sentence, which you would have written in two seconds on the old phone. You’re having to remember passwords that were saved on your old phone. Your Internet is constantly dropping and you don’t know why. 4. Denial: You’re afraid to tell any of your friends and family that you made a big mistake. You keep telling them that the BlackBerry 10 is all it cracked up to be – it’s much better than its immediate competitors. “So why aren’t my messages going through?” asks your friend. “I’m experiencing a couple of networking issues, a few teething problems. But you should see how slick and fluid it is going between the apps. It’s a great phone.” Meanwhile, you’re back on Google filtering through more and more reviews hoping other people are experiencing the same issues as you.