After a number of delays and setbacks BlackBerry 10 finally arrived
in January and BlackBerry's new mobile platform has already witnessed
its major first update in its life cycle with BlackBerry 10.1 now
available on all three BB10 devices.
We've explored the new
version of the operating system and have updated our BlackBerry 10
review accordingly - you lucky, lucky people.
The PhonesBlackBerry Z10BlackBerry Q10BlackBerry Q5
The BlackBerry Z10
kicked off the Canadian firm's renewed onslaught on the mobile market,
but it has since been joined by the QWERTY keyboard toting BlackBerry Q10 and more recently the budget focused BlackBerry Q5.
While
in the short term focus will be put on the devices it's the software
the handsets are running that is really the key to BlackBerry's long
term success, or ultimate demise.
The BlackBerry smartphone range has been in desperate need of a reboot for a while as the likes of iOS 6, Android Jelly Bean and Windows Phone 8 have outstripped the extremely outdated BB OS7 platform.
Whereas
the other systems have witnessed incremental upgrades, BB 10 is a
totally new offering – the BB OS7 base has been completely scrapped and
the new platform rebuilt from the ground up.
BB10 sees the
implementation of a whole new user interface, doing away with the
familiar BlackBerry system we're all used to in favour of something that
resembles the likes of Android and iOS, although with its own unique
features thrown in for good measure.
BlackBerry 10 has merged
homescreens, widgets, app lists and a unified inbox into one slick
interface, offering up an easy-to-navigate user experience.
Lock screen
The
first thing you're greeted with on BlackBerry 10 is the lock screen,
which not only shows the time and date, but also notifications, unread
messages and upcoming calendar events.
There's a button to launch
the camera straight from the lock screen to grab a quick snap, just hold
down on the icon for three of seconds.
It's slightly longer than we'd like and the simple slide action on some Android handsets is quicker.
To
unlock a touchscreen BB 10 handset you need to slide your finger up the
screen. As you do, the homescreen below will begin to appear, giving
you a sneak peek of what's underneath.
What you can't do from the
lockscreen is jump straight into a new message, email or other
notification. Instead you' have to unlock the handset in the normal way
and then slide into the BlackBerry Hub.
It's not a huge issue but
it's something we'd like to see crop up in a future update as it will
further enhance the fluidity of BB 10.
When viewing the lock
screen you can drag down from the top of the display to show the night
time clock mode - which has a lovely analogue clock face and a toggle
for your alarm.
The black background and red highlights mean when
you check the time in the middle of the night you won't be blinded by a
bright display, which is always a bonus.
Homescreen
The
main BlackBerry 10 homescreen is comprised of 'Active Frames',
technically mini-applications, which give you an overview of information
from a particular app and launch the full version when tapped.
BB10
will display up to eight of these active frames, showing your most
recently used apps with the latest app appearing in the top-left
position.
Only four of these panes can fit on the screen at one
time, so you'll need to scroll down to see the rest – which all seems a
little pointless, since you can just as quickly swipe sideways to access
the app list and launch the app you want from there.
For those of
you who may be concerned that these 'Active Frames' could be both data
and battery-intensive, BlackBerry assures us that this is not the case,
with the QNX core of BlackBerry 10 providing efficient power management,
and the frames only downloading the minimum amount of data required for
them to update.
To be fair we've seen pretty good battery life
from both the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 during our in-depth review process,
so we're inclined to believe BlackBerry's claims.
If
you get fed up of seeing a particular frame then you can easily close
it by hitting the small cross in the bottom right corner and if you
close all the panes you'll be taken by default to the first page in the
app list until you open another.
When you're in an app there's no
back button on screen to help you exit. This brings us to another key
feature of BB10, as it encourages you to use a gesture to quit
applications by running your finger up from the bottom of the screen,
returning you to the active frame view.
While this is easy to do
on the Z10 and Q5 it's a little trickier with the Q10 which doesn't
provide any additional space between the bottom of the display and its
QWERTY keyboard.
Those who are already familiar with other
smartphones will find the action pretty unnatural and it takes a while
to get used to the new way of doing things on BlackBerry 10.
Swiping from right to left on the homescreen will take you to the app
list, with 16 apps on the screen at any one time if you're using the
fully touchscreen Z10, while the 3.1-inch display found on the Q10 and Q5 only manages to squeeze 12 on at a time.
If
you have more than 16 (or 12) apps, additional pages are added and can
be accessed by swiping the same way again, which is familiar territory
for iOS and Android users.
You can manage your applications by
creating folders, which will reduce the number of pages you need to sift
through - which is especially useful on the smaller screened devices.
Hold
down on an app any they'll begin to pulsate. Simple drag one on top of
another to create a folder (sound familiar?), which you can then rename
to some relevant.
There's also the option to uninstall apps in
this throbbing view, with a small trash can icon appearing in the top
right of each app icon - although stock apps such as contacts, browser
and calendar cannot be removed. No huge surprise there.
There's
a pleasant fading animation as you flick between pages, and you'll see
the previous page of apps fade away to the side of the screen, to be
replaced by the new page.
When you select an application from the
list BlackBerry 10 doesn't automatically open it up. What you get
instead is a short animation which sees BB10 zoom to the active frame
page where the app appears and then enlargers to fill the screen.
It
may be a nice visual effect but it has absolutely no practical
advantage and all it does is slow you down, adding another second or so
to the app's load time.
At the bottom of both the homescreen and
app list you'll notice a shortcut bar, with quick links to the phone and
camera applications, enabling you to quickly jump to these regularly
used features.
These
shortcuts cannot be changed which is a little annoying as we'd like the
flexibility to be able to put our most used apps in this handy space.
If
you're rocking the Z10 you also get a search link here which isn't
available on the other handsets as search is conducted by simply tapping
out what you want on the physical keyboard.
For those of you who are a fan of quick settings you'll be pleased to learn that BB 10 delievers in this department.
Slide
down from the top of the screen when you're viewing the homescreen or
app list and a bar will pop down - in a similar vein to the notification
bar in Android - giving you toggles for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, alarm and
silent mode.
Tap the icon to turn a particular service on or off,
or if you want to fine tune one tap it's name instead you'll be
propelled to the relevant area of the settings menu.
A slight
annoyance with BlackBerry 10 is the fact that you can only set one
alarm, so unless you're good at getting up promptly or adept with the
snooze button you may find yourself oversleeping if you're relying on a
BB10 device.
This
is something which should be able to be tweaked in a software update,
but it hasn't arrived with BlackBerry 10.1, so the wait continues.
Something which did arrive with the BlackBerry 10.1 update is the ability to customise your notifications for various accounts.
The
famous red notification LED is present on all three of BlackBerry's new
handsets and you can now control this along with ringtones and
vibration on an account by account basis, and even contact by contact.
We'd
have liked it if the LED in question was multi-coloured so you can have
it flash, for example blue for a Facebook update, red for a message and
green for an email.
Peek and Flow
Peek and Flow are two core aspects that come heavily baked into BlackBerry 10 and they dictate the way you use the system.
Flow
refers to the way the whole of BB 10 operates, as you glide between
applications and screens with no hard navigation tools such as the back
or home buttons that are found on rival handsets.
It's very
different to any system we've experienced before, so it took us a few
days to get our heads around the various gestures required to
effectively use BB10.
At times we wished there was a simple back
button below the screen, since it wasn't always clear how to return to
the previous screen. But the more we used BlackBerry 10 the more we
became used to the way it should be used.
Our
concern here is that BB 10 requires a relatively steep learning curve
for everyone, even those who have owned BlackBerry handsets in the past.
It
becomes easier once you've played with BlackBerry 10 for a few days,
but we fear customers may be turned off in-store when they preview a
handset.
Onto Peek and this is a smart little gesture enabling you
to check your latest notifications and messages without having to exit
the current app you're using.
As you swipe up over the screen, BB10 will minimise the pane you're viewing and display notification icons down the left side.
This
includes icons for new texts, emails, BBMs, social updates and missed
calls, and if any of these pique your interest then continue your
finger's motion to the right and the screen will slide over to reveal
the BlackBerry Hub so you can see who the message is from.
If
it's just a boring newsletter you can return to the app, video or game
(which are automatically paused) you were viewing without having to go
back to the app list and navigate to it. Unless it's the TechRadar newsletter, which you'll obviously want to read straight away.
This
action can be sped up it you want to get straight to the Hub view, just
start your finger to the left of the base of the screen and drag
diagonally up, which will see the peek movement streamlined.
The
whole BlackBerry 10 interface does appear to be very smooth with no sign
of lag on any of the three handsets, which makes for a pleasing user
experience – once you've worked out the various gestures required to get
around, that is.
The BlackBerry Hub is the universal inbox
found on BlackBerry 10, and it pulls in all forms of communications from
calls and texts to emails, BBMs and social updates.
A
new addition to the Hub in the BlackBerry 10.1 update is pin to pin
messaging, allowing you to communicate directly with other BlackBerry
smartphones in a secure fashion.
Of course with so many accounts
feeding into the handset, the more popular among us will be quickly
inundated with notifications from various different channels, and this
is where the Peek idea makes it easy to see when you've got anything new
to look at.
To make the reams of messages easier to manage, tap
the title in the bottom-left corner of the message centre to reveal a
list of all the accounts you have linked up, and then select the one
you're interested in – this will then populate the Hub with
notifications from just that source.
There are also various
options which can be selected for a particular message, hold down on the
communication in question and a slim column of tools will pop up to the
right for you to choose from, including reply, forward and delete.
If you're using the QWERTY keyboard toting BlackBerry Q5 or Q10 there are predefined shortcut keys to speed up the messaging process.
For example you can hit "R" to reply, "L" to reply all or "F" to forward the email you're currently viewing on screen.
You
can start tapping out a text, email, tweet or Facebook post from the
homescreen on the Q10 and Q5, as the BB10 integration has the smarts to
detect what action you want.
While the BlackBerry Z10
cannot benefit from these shortcuts it has the advantage of packing a
larger screen, allowing more content to be displayed at once resulting
in much less scrolling for you.
The amount of scrolling on the Q5
and Q10 really bugged us at time as it's frustrating that you can only
see four messages at a time.
Drag down from the top of the message
centre and the BB10 Hub will automatically pull in your calendar events
for that day in the top half of the screen, enabling you to quickly see
what you've got on without having to launch the full calendar app.
It's an impressive setup and we reckon other platforms may be looking at the BlackBerry Hub with a little bit of envy.
It's not without its faults though and one of our biggest bug bears is its integration with the peek gesture.
If
you read a message and then immediately exit the Hub without returning
to the main overview next time you want to peek at your inbox you'll see
the message you last read, instead of your new entries.
The way
round this is to remember to hit back once you've read/replied to
someone, but it feels like a bit of a waste of time and a little
unintuitive.
BBM
BBM,
or BlackBerry Messenger, has been a cornerstone of the BlackBerry
experience for years, and it gets a revamp with BlackBerry 10.
The dedicated application has been given a lick of paint, with easier navigation and a new feature called BBM Video.
BBM
Video joins up with BBM Voice, which launched recently on BB OS7, to
bring both voice and video calls to the BBM application on BlackBerry
10.
The days of the BlackBerry bolt-ons on phone tariffs have been
and gone, with all your BBM activity coming out of your data allowance
if you're not connected to Wi-Fi. So you'll need to keep an eye on your
data usage.
Adding contacts is easy and within the BBM app you have the choice of tapping in your friend's pin, or scanning their QR code.
You
can send, receive and reply to BBMs from the BlackBerry Hub but if you
want the full range of options you'll need to fire up the dedicated
application.
BBM is set to roll out on iOS and Android this summer
which makes it an even more attractive proposition as all your friends
will be able to use no matter what phone they're rocking - apart from
those suckers with a Windows Phone who aren't getting treated to the
social messaging app.
Keyboard
Now all this messaging
capability is nothing without an input method, and keyboards are
arguably the thing BlackBerry handsets are most known for.
BlackBerry
has spoken in length about how it has engineered its on-screen keyboard
to bring users the experience they get on the physical version with the
all-new touch offering.
Straight up, we can say the BB 10
keyboard on the Z10 is miles better than the pitiful attempt that
adorned the Torch range of BlackBerry handsets, but it's not perfect. The keyboard sports the silver frets that can be found on the Bold 9900, providing additional spacing between lines and allowing for better travel between keys.
These
frets also act as the space for the next word prediction, and the more
you type the more BB 10 learns and offers smarter suggestions.
We
were able to type at a reasonable pace, but we found the next word
prediction if anything slowed us down, since the font is too small to
easily see, and we found our fingers were covering most of the
suggestions anyway.
It's a different story over on the Q10 and Q5
where BlackBerry's prowess in physical keyboards are once again brought
to the fore.
While there's no dynamic suggestions popping up above
each key you do still get spell check and predictions on screen to aid
your typing experience.
In the BlackBerry 10.1 update text
manipulation has been greatly improved, making it a lot easier to
highlight text on screen, leading to an easier way of editing your
missives as well as copying and pasting.
BlackBerry is calling it
Fine Cursor Control, and a blue circle will pop up on screen when you
hold down on text, allowing you to place the cursor where you want, and
also highlight various words and characters.
BlackBerry is making a big song and dance about its BB
10 camera application as well, especially the 'Time Shift' feature,
which enables you to select the perfect smile of your subject after
taking the photo.
Fire up the camera app (from the lock screen if
you so wish), select 'Time Shift' mode and snap your subject, and the
app will then search for faces in the image.
Once a face is
located in a photo, you can tap it and literally roll back time to find
the point at which your friend had their eyes open and the perfect grin. If
there are multiple people in your snap, you can individually adjust
each person, however during our demo we found 'Time Shift' struggled in
lower lighting conditions – subjects' faces need to be illuminated well
for the camera to detect their mugs. 'Time
Shift' did take a couple of seconds after the photo was taken to detect
faces and offer us the chance to tweak the image, but this could be
down to the fact it's running on a development build of the BB10
software, and speed could be improved in the final product.
Of
course the camera can take standard photos and record video alongside
the 'Time Shift' function, which itself is an impressive function, but
we wonder how much we'd actually use it day to day.
In terms of
other features the BB10 camera app is pretty sparsely populated,
offering you flash and aspect ratio toggles, the ability to switch
between front and rear cameras and a handful of scenes and shooting
modes. A new shooting mode which arrived with BlackBerry 10.1 is HDR, although the lower-end BlackBerry Q5 hasn't been gifted this fancy camera tech with the feature appearing to be reserved for the higher end Z10 and Q10.
We
found the auto-focus could be a little tardy at times which resulted us
in missing a shot or blurring the image, but the ability to use the
volume keys on each of the handsets as a shutter button is a welcome
bonus.
Browser
The BlackBerry browser has also had a
refresh for BB10, bringing it in line with the minimalist style of
current offerings on other devices. The location of the URL bar at the
bottom of the page is reminiscent of Internet Explorer on Windows Phone.
Even
though Adobe has already ditched future support and upgrades of its
Flash platform, BlackBerry has made sure it's built in support for the
dying format in BB 10, enabling you to access all your favourite
Flash-built sites and videos of Korean men dancing on invisible horses.
Sweep
from left to right while in the browser and the Peek functionality
comes into play again, this time showing various internet-centric
options such as History, Bookmarks, New Tab and your currently opened
tabs.
There's also a Reader mode built into the new browser, which
lifts article text and images from a web page and displays it in a more
manageable and easy to read format, stripping out fancy ads, menu bars
and any other clutter that gets in the way of actually reading
something.
Reader mode is especially useful on the Q10 and Q5, as
their peculiar screen sizes don't work particularly well with regular
sites, so having the ability to pull the text out by itself makes it a
far more pleasing experience.
The key browser boon however is
speed. We found that on all three BlackBerry 10 devices websites loaded
in a blink of an eye and it's one of the quickest browsers - if not the
quickest - currently on the market.
All three handsets come with
4G connectivity (although the Q5 will be available as 3G only in select
markets) which boasts load times when you're out and about and of course
Wi-Fi is fully supported as well.
Cascades
Then there's
Cascades, a new navigation system cooked up by BlackBerry especially for
BB10, enabling quick multitasking from within applications.
The
example we've seen is in the messaging app - open an email and it will
display full screen, but drag your finger from left to right and the
message will slide with you, revealing the inbox below.
This means
if you get a new message in the middle of reading an email, you can
check who it's from without having to close the application – similar to
the notification bar on Android and also now on iOS.
If
you were to open an attachment from the email – a PDF document in the
case of our demo – pulling to the side to view the Cascade will show the
app's layers stacked up. It's a more visual paper trail, if you will.
It's
certainly an intuitive feature that we found worked smoothly on the
development handset – but it will be interesting to see how this feature
is embedded into other applications and if it will have the same
pleasing results.
BlackBerry World
Apps were a big talking
point in the run up to the launch of BlackBerry 10, with BlackBerry
assuring everyone that it had loads of developers creating applications
especially for the platform.
BlackBerry
World launched with over 70,000 applications in the store and within
just a few months that has grown to 120,000 which is pretty impressive
and big names like WhatsApp and Skype have finally made it on after
being promised at launch.
While 120,000 doesn't sound like a lot
when you compare it to the likes of Android and iOS which boast over
700,000 apps each, BlackBerry reckons it's the quality not quantity in
BlackBerry World that makes all the difference.
Facebook has
popped in and updated its app for BB 10, which brings with it the
ability to activate the Chat feature. It also enhances scrolling and
gives a 'better photo experience' to make you want to use your new
BlackBerry to socially network more than ever before.
It's good to
see strong growth in the BB 10 app store, although it still has a long
way to go and there are numerous high-profile absentees which will put a
lot of consumers off.
BlackBerry Word itself isn't our favourite
app store in terms of design and navigation, with a confusing list of
various apps, music and videos on the main page making it difficult to
digest all the information.
You can refine your search by
categories, which goes some way to working out what's on offer, but
there's no option to view just free apps, for example.
The way you
go about updating applications has been improved in the BlackBerry 10.1
update, with a notification popping up in the BlackBerry Hub to alert
you when a new upgrade is available.
