back to article Z30: The classiest BlackBerry mobe ever ... and possibly the last

It can't be very helpful for a manufacturer to launch a new phone amid speculation that the device could be its last. With $1bn written off on its little-loved predecessor the Z10, and the future of BlackBerry so uncertain, the new Z30 has been given a very low-key launch. And yet it turns out to be a very attractive phone …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. Afflicted.John

    It is good

    Self confessed Android fanboi that I am...I just bloody love the Z30. The first phone in a long time (if ever) that I look forward to using. Android seems to be slowly deconstructing itself through ever increasing and sometimes daft features (Samsung is to blame) while the Z30 just does the stuff really, really well.

    I cannot heap enough praise on the thing and only complain slightly due to its weight. But that is a mild tradeoff...

  2. Nick

    It's a shame more people don't give BB10 a second look

    Recent phone history: Nokia N8 (great but SIM slot broke), E61 (keyboard bugs drove me mad), Galaxy S3 (too many hangs/reboots during important calls) and now Z10.

    BB10 made no impression when I started using it, but now going back to anything else makes the back/home/app screen paradigm seem very old indeed.

    Wife's Nokia 1020 is promising, but OS hasn't had the constant stream of (useful) updates that we've had on BB10.

    Installing a beta is as easy as downloading the .exe (if you're a windows user). Then, when the release version overtakes your beta, it'll just ask you if you want to upgrade to it... eat that Android hackers. Finally, as far as I can tell, it's unbrickable, perhaps a legacy of supporting non-technical corporates for so long?

    Totally agree with the author's comment about getting the bloody cursor to the beginning of the line though, but a single left swipe will erase a whole word. I use that for now.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: It's a shame more people don't give BB10 a second look

      >Finally, as far as I can tell, it's unbrickable, perhaps a legacy of supporting non-technical corporates for so long?

      Being based on QNX - a Real Time OS with a long history of being used where reliability is paramount, such as industrial machine control - probably has something to do with it.

  3. TaabuTheCat

    Gone without carrier support

    We were a big BB shop and have gradually moved everyone over to BYOB this year. Can't say I miss supporting all the BB users but for the most part the devices just worked and we were confident in the security they provided.

    I still haven't given up completely on BB but I'm close. The real killer for us has been lack of carrier (Verizon) support for upgrades. We tested the Z10 when it came, then the Q - both decent devices that desperately needed updates to get better. Nothing from Verizon, and I fear the same for the Z30. No carrier support = no BB for us.

    1. AV8

      Re: Gone without carrier support

      Yeah it's bad that US carriers seem to take longest or be last in getting updates out. If only it was like how Apple controls the updates through iTunes and everyone gets it.

      Hmmm.... the new BB10 phones determine when an update is available by the sim card you are using (provided the phone is unlocked). If you can't wait for an update from Verizon, anyone have a Canadian sim like Virgin Wireless or Fido ? I'm with a provider in another region that doesn't see updates a quickly, so I use a deactivated sim from Canada which enables the phone to receive updates from that provider.

  4. Mamileon

    Been using a z30 for a week - suprisingly good

    I hated my old Blackberry Bold. Slow, couldn't open a webpage without crashing. I hated it so much I was thinking about buying my own iPhone and using Good for Enterprise for work email.

    We're doing a trial at work so I have one of a handful of Z30's as a test handset. The screen is great, the battery life is around 2 and half days, the predictive text is brilliant. I don't miss a keyboard at all as the on screen predictive text is a lot faster and seems to learn well. The Blackberry balance is good, locking away work stuff when you don't want it and it means I can have more control over a work phone instead of it being totally locked down.

    The hub is great, brings everything together nicely where as on the iPhone this spread across GFE, texts, emails, messaging... Of course it hasn't got same selection of apps like such as an Android or iPhone but I would mostly just use a browser and email on it anyway and there it excels.

  5. TonyJ

    Too little, too late.

    I used to have BB handsets. First through work and then my own.

    I bought the wife an original iPhone and she hated it - the things it couldn't do outweighed, for her (then), the things it could and the BB platform blew it out of the water. But when things like being able to trivially connect to an Exchange solution and apps were introduced for free, the rot started to set in for BB.

    Their ((BB) handsets started to drop tremondously in quality whilst their prices remained high. Their lack of simple support for push mail or sync calendars unless you had an Enterprise class backend infrastructure, were the beginning of nails in the BB coffin.

    Yes they were inherently more secure than other handsets available at the time but things like apps and usability of droid and iphone were even more of those nails in the coffin.

    I don't know if they particularly are any more (as in I genuinely don't know). but I can remotely wipe my devices using various tools from free to paid for, for example, and my solutions are built to be secure from the outset but they may still have layers not available elsewhere.

    Anyway, I guess my salient points are that they rested on their laurels for far too long, churning out the same old stuff on hardware that was looking ever more dated whilst the world, it's dog and other manufacturers got on with trying to produce stuff that people might actually both want and use.

    Of course there's a contrary argument there now that would go along the lines of said manufacturers have stopped that and are now getting on with trying to sue the f*ck out each other while world + dog looks on bemused and wonders when we'll see some more innovation again.

  6. Bear Features

    and again...firstly people, especially the media, have been saying BB is about to collapse, for the last 3 years.

    Secondly, why bash bash BB? So you're an Aple Fanboi or an Android Fan... you really want no choice in the market? It HAS to be your brand and your brand only?? That makes sense... not.

    I would be a travesty to see them go. I hope they don't. In addition lets have more and lets enjoy the choice! For our wallets' sake, as well as choice.

  7. Lloyd

    Here's the thing

    Blackberry does what it should do, works well for corporate users, the problem with that is that every single corporate user I've ever encountered wants an iPhone as their company phone. Not because it fulfills all or even some of what they need it for, simply because it's bling. We had a sales department who told us that we needed an iPhone app because our client base was screaming out for a mobile version of our product (on release it was used by 4 people a week out of a base of 250,000). Of course this meant that they would all need an iPhone to show it to potential clients so we migrated everyone off Blackberry to Apple, cue a massive rise in support calls and lots of blame on "well I can't do that on an iPhone when I'm out on the road".

  8. Tim Parker

    Mailboxes

    FTA

    "Well, no other device allows huge mailboxes to be instantly searchable."

    I presume you intended that to mean locally stored mailboxes using an installed application ? Even then, i'm not sure that that statement is correct. Much, is suspect, would depend on what you are trying to convey with 'instantly' - clearly that's impossible for any device or application, so what was the intent ?

  9. Bunty Collocks

    I have a Q10 and I love it. It has an excellent feel and solid construction, good call quality, long battery life, good browser and calendar, excellent email and messaging capabilities. The other stuff smart phones have is mostly all fluff, nonsense and iWilly waving.

    I want Blackberry to survive. I don't need them to be the top selling or even the second or third top selling platform, I just want them to be profitable and to keep making handsets. Choice is good, so I chose a phone not a statement of allegiance.

    It was also a great deal - something that's very hard to get at the fashionable end of the market.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what NO FORWARD BACKWARD BUTTON?

    i'M LOST

  11. Unicornpiss
    Pint

    No more rimjobs.com?

    I hope that RIM manages to pull this off and these catch on. I'm not really a fanboi of either i-stuff or Android, though I find myself liking Apple less and less having to support and set up Apple devices daily at work. Our company made a sudden transition from BB to get off of the expensive BES licensing and jump on the Apple bandwagon. While Apple's build quality is much better than RIM's used to be, "It just works" is many miles from the truth. We've had SO many problems with email and having to reinstall iOS, and the "two finger salute" on an iPhone has replaced the old BB battery pull. And Apple's on-screen keyboard is just awful, frankly. My Android with "Swype" puts it to shame, and I occasionally like to torture die hard Apple fans with how easy and fast it is to use.

    The problem is, RIM had the market by the horns 4 or so years ago and let the world pass them by. Good luck prying an iPhone out of a fanboi's hands--you'd have more luck convincing a Southern Baptist preacher to convert to Catholicism. (or in the case of switching to Android, Zoroastrianism) And with plentiful Android devices around in varying degrees of quality and price, and now Windows phone, I just don't see RIM managing to recapture enough market to save themselves.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No more rimjobs.com?

      Blackberry's problem seems to be not only poor execution of product launches, timing and delusional pricing in a changed market, but also reviewers who cannot seem to say anything positive without tacking on the "OH BUT" negative, such as this article which is fair and very positive, BUT with the added "..might be the last !"

      Perception is a powerful force. And people can make up their minds by just seeing a headline rather than digging further. I've been in companies which collapsed not because they were likely going to, but because created market fear caused people to suddenly and all at once pull out their finances, collapsing the whole organizations. BB did a lot to contribute to their own problems by ignoring customer wants as well, but the press also seems to be giving them a lot of negative help.

  12. Van

    Sorry

    I couldn't take a review seriously that uses 'classiest' or' classy' to describe a telephone.

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like