tech talk
Specs at a glance: BlackBerry Z10
Thorsten Heins,
CEO, BlackBerry
5. Regret: You cave in and decide to go back to your old phone – the place “where everybody knows your name”, but your SIM doesn’t fit it anymore. You haven’t been in contact with your friends on instant messenger for a couple of days now. You would give up food for a week to retrieve the old situation. 6. Reconciliation: You eventually concede that you need to give the phone time. It’s quite possible that the phone is as confused as you are and you both need to get to know each other before you can have a harmonious relationship. BlackBerry says that the keypad will eventually get to know your favourite words and nuances and will help you to type faster if you give it time. Maybe there are some better applications that can replace my old ones. 7. Delight and contentment: After some days, you eventually get to where you want to be. Your favourite apps are all on your home screen. You are typing as fast, if not faster, than on your previous phone. You’re able to download new apps in a fraction of the old time. You can have multiple apps open at the same time, instead of having to close down one and open another. You are flipping between these apps like you are turning pages on a newspaper. Having had the phone for just over a week now, I am struggling through Phase 6 at the moment. But, there are some excellent features that tickle my fancy. The Internet browser is a dream to use. It’s fast and produces neat text. The hub is a great idea; it aggregates all your messages and notifications – e-mail, SMS, BBM, Facebook, Google Chat, LinkedIn and Twitter – into one generator, but it also allows you to see each application independently of any other. I am disappointed that What’s App isn’t included in the package. This was a programme which I used quite frequently with my friends
Screen
1280x768 4.2” (356 ppi) IPS touchscreen
OS
BlackBerry 10
CPU
Dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus
RAM
2GB
GPU
Qualcomm Adreno 225
Storage
16GB NAND flash, expandable via microSD
Networking
802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC
Ports
Micro USB, Micro HDMI, headphones
Camera
8.0MP rear camera, 2MP front camera
Size
5.12” x 2.58” x 0.35” (130 x 65.6 x 9 mm)
Weight
4.78oz (135.4 g)
Battery
1800 mAh
Starting price
QR2,599
Sensor
Ambient light sensor, GPS
Other perks
Power adapter, case, screen cleaner
and family back home. I am assuming it will become available in the coming weeks, however. The Z10’s predictive typing is pretty innovative, though. As you type, small word suggestions appear over the top of the keys. It makes general suggestions for conjunctions and such when you’re between words, but it will continue to make suggestions as you progress through words: typing H, for instance, could make “how” appear over the U key, “had” appear over the R key, or “has” appear over the N key, and so on. The camera is another feature I enjoyed. I took a picture, just tipping my finger against the screen, at the Corniche recently, and I was able to save the image in one of four different artistic styles: black and white, lomo, antique or sepia. The antique, my favourite, makes your image look like it was taken thirty years ago. You can rotate, crop and enhance it before easily uploading the edited image to the Internet. It’s hard to write about the battery life of any of these smartphones without complaining, but I guess we’re all used to having to charge our phones twice a day now. I get the feeling the Z10 battery is a little bit stronger than the one on the Curve, but I haven’t been pounding away on What’s App on this one, so it’s difficult to compare just ye. The BlackBerry World app store now includes 70,000 BlackBerry 10 apps. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare apps for BlackBerry 10 are preinstalled, while customers will also have access to leading application providers such as Disney, Cisco and Rovio. I wasn’t able to find Skype in the app store, even though this was also promised
MARCH 2013
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