[Worth your money?] BlackBerry Passport - Savior of BlackBerry?

 [Worth your money?] - Based on what i have read and my own judgement, advising consumer whether the phone is worthy or just a waste of money if you get it. 
PHONE of the discussion - BlackBerry Passport
*First impression that i got from this phone is WEIRD. Mainly was due to phone designed that Blackberry made. A square screen? Now they finally did something that separate them from the other smartphones in the market.  

PHONE DESIGN: 

It's an 4.5Inch phone that is about the same size as a real US passport. This kind of design would surely grab lots of attention from the consumers. Imagine yourself holding this brick phone at your face, what would people think about that? BlackBerry design has always been targeting different kind of audiences: the main consumers that uses BlackBerry are "Professional". Mainly for work due to the "security of the phone" Hence the designed and the color they offer are black and white. Most of the first impression video that i watched, mention that holding using one hand are uncomfortable. This brick would need two hand to operate smoothly. 

SPECIFICATION:

This phone is measured by 128x90.3x9.3mm and it weigh about 196gram which is light yet solid to hold due to the design. The square 4.5inch display has a 1440x1440 pixel resolution which gives you the pixel density of 453 pixels per inch. The key of the beautiful screen is the width here, as the Passport can show about 60 characters on every line. The result of this is giving consumers a good experience in browsing and reading texts from the phone. Under this brick, It has a quad-core 2.2GHz qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of ram. With such power underneath the hood, this is by far the most impressive specs it has in a blackberry phone. Day to Day usage with this phone will be very smooth and you won't experience any signs of lagging or stuttering. 

The BlackBerry Passport boasts a 13MP rear-facing camera, along with a 2MP camera on the front. With such a "promising" camera comes with a disappointment result. It is able to give you a decent shots but most of the reviewer said that the camera is not good. Images appeared washed out, lacking in details due to artificial lighting, and it didn't fare well in low light situation. 

Another impressive part is the battery life. It packed 3450mAh, which enable your phone to last through the entire day without any problem. The reason why it is so impressive because it is running a processor that is power pack yet it able to last you a day without problem. Some of the reviewers said that lasting 2 day isn't a problem too. 

The phone ships with 32GB of internal storage, which can be expanded up to 64GB via microSD card. 

SOFTWARE: 

This phone will be running a new version of their OS, version 10.3. The reason why BlackBerry is slowly dying was due to the App selection. The special things is that you can run quite a few Android apps. 
Surprisingly this phone comes with preinstalled Amazon Appstore, which you can just start it up and download apps as you would on any Android device. However this is no Google Play Store, the apps are still limited from Amazon's market, but most of the important application can still be found. 
Even though Google's official apps are missing. (Such as mail, hangouts and etc ) The native BlackBerry Mail and calendar apps are great still. BlackBerry's BBM is of course readily available, some say BBM are still the best way of communication due to the secure line that BBM is famous of.

 BlackBerry's ecosystem has always been their strong suit. The device does great job of juggling disparate accounts and giving you a single "hub" to let you view everything in it. A side bar called instant actions sits on the right side of the hub, and will allow you to quickly respond to text messages or file and delete emails all at once. The priority hub works like any email's priority inbox. It also will learn your habits as you go, through you can flag messages as important. By swiping down from the top of the screen, you can access the app's setting. If you want to minimize an app, swipe up from the bottom of the display and you be taken to the multitasking screen. Up to eight apps can be open at a time. If you minimize more than that, apps will close automatically. 

To be note: Some of the application aren't optimized for the square display, you are still able to play on this phone but it will definitely look weird. 

The BlackBerry blend 
is also one of a notable addition. It allows Passport owners to include data- messages, BBM, SMS, Calendar, Contact from any desktop PC or tablet that has the Blend app installed. This feature that BlackBerry claims also allows business users to access work related content securely from a non-work PC. (How useful? well we need to wait for certain company to adopt this method first then we can tell) It also serves as a file management. It gives you access to just about everything on the devices, you can add any files to your BlackBerry device right through Blend, turning this phone into a giant USB drive.

BlackBerry Assistant
acts like Siri, Google Now or even Cortana, It's your own personal assistant. However it is slower than the rest. Hence this is a disappointing part but hey, no one really use their assistant much right?

KEYBOARD:

Physically keyboard still popular among consumers. BlackBerry has always been using four-row physical keyboard like on the Q10 or BlackBerry Bold. However, all these has been replaced with a three-row model. While the "fourth" row is on the screen, where you can insert numbers and punctuation or capitalize letters. Even though the spacebar is a little narrow, but i believe that you would get used to it after some time. 

If you think that keyboard is used for typing only? you are wrong. BlackBerry has built in quite a few really features and gestures that give its keyboard an edge. 
The Keyboard is touch-enable, and it works fairly well. The consider predictive text will learn as you type and three suggested words would appear above the keyboard. Swipe a finger upward underneath any of those options and the word will be selected. (Definitely will take awhile to be used to it) If you make a mistake, just slide to the left on the keyboard and the last word you typed will be deleted. 

Editing documents on this phone is a joy due to the keyboard. Double-tap lightly on the keyboard and a magnifying glass will apear over your text. You can use the keyboard as a sort of touchpad to scroll about with, dropping the cursor exactly where you need it. it's really precise, and makes editing a very long documents less hassle. (Even though using a proper computer would still be the better option)

Naturally, if you are browsing websites or scrolling through documents, by swiping up or down will enable you to navigate like the old touchpad on previous generation of BlackBerry phones. 

Worth Your Money?

I would say that i would consider this phone if i am working in a corporate world. Where i can use the Blend that would help me access my file easier. If a company want a phone that would benefit their staff when it comes to work, this phone would be worth your money. BBM and Blend would be your safest and secured way of showing confidential files or discussing about sensitive topic. 

 Personally, this phone would likely to be my secondary phone if i really want to buy it. The app selection are good but not great. There are tons of popular games that you would play on a Galaxy Note or iPhone would not be enjoyable on this phone due to the screen size. 

 If you are not a great fan of gaming on your phone, you can consider this phone. It has a amazing battery life which i have mention on my previous post (What i want on a future smartphone). Do not need to worry about your phone battery flat and needing to bring your bulky battery pack everywhere you go.  

 BlackBerry is certainly not for everyone in the market. If i have to break it down to you, by taking away the gaming factor, this phone would serve well for you. 


QUESTION OF THE DAY.

Do you think that Blackberry passport is their savior? Will it lead BlackBerry back to the main market? 
Tell me what you think down below the comment section. 

i write when i feel like it. Super fond abput gadgets which is why i choose to talk about tech related stuff. if you want to look for reviewer or events relating to tech, feel free to email me at oliviercheah@gmail.com

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