back to article BlackBerry 10: AWESOME. If the hardware matches it, RIM jobs are safe

BlackBerry users have a love-hate relationship with their phones. The devices were often forced upon users rather than chosen. At the same time, the handhelds were the most usable and useful communications gadgets you could put in your pocket. Yes, there are things a BlackBerry can't do very well or at all. But it is capable …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, Andrew

    You gonna swap your wipho for this then?

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: So, Andrew

      I'm living off loans and antiques right now. WinPho for the last month...

      This UI and the Lumia 920 would be a nice combo. I'd settle for that.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So, Andrew

        > This UI and the Lumia 920 would be a nice combo. I'd settle for that.

        It's called N9

  2. FartingHippo
    Alert

    It would be the greatest comeback since Lazarus

    RIP Sid Waddell.

  3. Lord Voldemortgage

    Can't help wondering

    If Nokia & BB would have made a better smartphone pairing than Nokia & MS.

    -

    What would it take to buy RIM now?

    1. Spoonsinger

      Re: What would it take to buy RIM now?

      Probably quite alot - QNX is used in quite a bit of actual useful things the world over. (But that stuff isn't usually shiny and finger print coated).

  4. hplasm
    Happy

    Looks good.

    Android, Apple and Blackberry. Plenty of competition there.

    Oh and that other one. Never mind.

    1. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Re: Looks good.

      Sorry to burst your bubble, but Rim became 'the other one' during November when WP sales over took them....

  5. RonWheeler

    email without BB services

    Will it allow me to collect email without BB services (IMAP, POP, hotmail etc)? The £5.month BB services tax has always been the biggest offputter for me as a home user, meaning I've stuck with Nokia QWERTY phones.

    1. sinfocomar
      Happy

      Re: email without BB services

      There have always been standalone email clientes for the Blackberry much like K9 on Android. Of course BB10 is not out yet, but I can tell you from my Playbook (already running QNX) I have email without needing a Blackberry phone or monthly data plan.

      1. RICHTO
        Mushroom

        Re: email without BB services

        Do you have BBM without the £5 Blackberry tax though? That's the only reason most people buy a Blackberry these days. Well that and as corporate devices - but that's a dead market for RIM now - Microsoft and BYOD will clean up there.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: email without BB services

      The Blackberry email service is basically the only reason you would but a Blackberry - so if you were going to use a standard POP3 / IMAP client you may as well any (other) smartphone instead.

      1. Christian Berger

        Well the early BBs

        The early BBs were actually nice phones with monochome screens and QWERTY keyboards. It would have made great sense to have IMAP on those, but it wasn't possible.

        For me that service is the big put off. I don't want my e-mail to go through unencrypted through a server standing somewhere neither the sender nor the receiver can control. The rare cases that already happens with regular e-mail are already enough.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Well the early BBs

          " I don't want my e-mail to go through unencrypted through a server"

          Errrm...you do know that Blackberry's are the most secure devices on the market? Certain countries (Looking at you India,) have threatened to ban the devices because of the high level of Encryption and RIM won't hand out the encryption keys to the local authorities.

          1. RICHTO
            Mushroom

            Re: Well the early BBs

            Only if you have your own BES server. Otherwise Blackberry DO give out keys on valid request....

    3. JimboSmith Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: email without BB services

      You could go with T-mobile and get BB service for £3.33 a month if you pay £20 for 6 months upfront.

  6. FutureShock999
    Megaphone

    IF the hardware is like the Bold 9900...

    The Bold 9900 is the best feeling handset out there IMHO. Thin, light, and exceptionally well-built. Give us something that looks like a 9900 with the right touchscreen, and THAT interface...Blackberry, are you listening?!?!?

    1. digitalman101
      Holmes

      Re: IF the hardware is like the Bold 9900...

      Besides a full touch, there will be a full BB10 QWERTY phone announced in January 30. So BB is listening ;-)

  7. Joe K
    Meh

    "But phones sell on the user interface"

    Not any more. They mainly sell on contract price of course, but nowadays cool-ness is a factor.

    And BB is about as cool as your dads work-tie collection.

    Like i saw someone tweet this week "Apple's "slack off while on the bog" campaign is far better than BB's "Work, work, work, die" one."

    1. Lord Voldemortgage

      Whose generation

      BB was the platform of choice for kids until very, very recently if it has indeed yet been overtaken.

      1. sinfocomar
        Flame

        Re: Whose generation

        Kids? They'll use any brand as long as it'll text and work social networks.

      2. RICHTO
        Mushroom

        Re: Whose generation

        "BB was the platform of choice for kids" ^ that couldn't afford a smartphone.

        Correction added for you.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "But phones sell on the user interface"

      From what I can see, coolness is also based on peer pressure and critical features. BlackBerries may not be cool to fogeys like me (been there, done that, moved on) but to my kids BBM is the holy grail of phone functionality.

      If this OS is as good as it sounds there's no reason why today's BB users won't become adult BlackBerry fanbois.

      ('BlackBerry fanbois' as 'RIM fanbois' just sounds wrong).

      1. MrT

        BlackBerry fanbois...

        ... still a bit of a mouthful though - how about "Bramblers"

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bramble

    3. sinfocomar

      Re: "But phones sell on the user interface"

      You probably haven't seen the "boy meeting girl in bar" BB ad and other latest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzPPOCHMaZI&playnext=1&list=PL6301D83540D8BAEE&feature=results_main

      The iPhone and iOS are the oldest dogs around... they're not cool anymore. Right now Samsung and others are far cooler.

      1. CmdrX3

        Re: "But phones sell on the user interface"

        My 18 year old asked for a BB (sitting in the cupboard). She hates my iPhone, and isn't overly keen on her older sisters android. If RIM can pull off good hardware with a good UI coupled with a decent ad campaign, then there is hope for them yet.

        1. RICHTO
          Mushroom

          Re: "But phones sell on the user interface"

          There really isn't hope. Market interest in BB10 is 4%, versus 22% for WP - http://www.mobilemag.com/2012/11/09/windows-phone8-and-iphone-interest-tied/

    4. apjanes
      Happy

      Not sure us on this forum are a good judge of coolness...

      I come in contact with lots of young people through coaching ice hockey and the phone of choice among them is indeed the Blackberry... may not be "cool" with execs these days but it's "sick" according to the rising generation.

    5. goldcd

      Oh I agree

      But I'm not at all convinced that iOS is 'cool' (and nor for that matter is an old version of Android running on some generic-underpowered PoS hardware).

      I for one am hoping utilitarian makes a come-back. Those decade old Nokias 6310s we still have lurking in the corners of the office, the ones that have unbeatable sound-quality, never broke and have a battery that lasts a week. I don't want one, but they have a special place in my heart.

      Even the users of iphones don't really seem to feel any attachment to theirs - every couple of years they'll wave around the new one they upgraded to, so an increasingly dimming sound of adulation. I mean this year "Oh, is that the new one?". "Oh, that's nice, it's widescreen finally, I see"

      I ooohed much more over the Lumia casing and the stylus on a Note.

      Looking at the BBX interface, the two apps on the same screen thing - that deserves an oooh.

      Just can't help but think once the mystique has gone from iphone, it'll have lost something. Does anybody really ooh over somebody pulling out an iphone as their corporate phone? You'd consider that a benefit in helping you decide whether to switch to another employer?

  8. danR2

    One-trick pony

    What you're saying is that RIM still makes a good phone. That's not good enough. The big three have gone way beyond that in computers, chromebooks, laptops, phones, tablets, clouds.

    Heins has proclaimed BB10 will be on Playbook (anyone remember Playbook) after it's on phones.

    After? Christmas 2013? What does 'after' mean to Heins' precision Teutonic mind? That's strangely vague language coming from someone who likes to nail down dates, and the Crackberry site is awash with rumour about what it all means.

    RIM is always going to be a peripheral maker, and becoming more so in time.

    1. sinfocomar
      Happy

      Re: One-trick pony

      BB10/QNX is on just about any car in the USA. You have no clue whatsover. Also I have a Playbook and it'll upgrade to BB10 seamlessly. How's the rest of the tablets regarding getting a new major OS? You'd better start saving for the next iPad...

      1. M Gale

        Re: One-trick pony

        IIRC, my last update was a notification. "There is new firmware available, you want?"

        I said "yes please". Did the same thing for a minor update a few days ago.

        Asus do make nice tablet-tops.

        1. danR2

          Re: One-trick pony

          I think you're addressing another article, or comment.

      2. danR2

        Re: One-trick pony

        It's a stretch to say QNX runs on cars and conflate that with BB10.

        "I have a Playbook...seamlessly."

        When? Don't say "after the phones". That's almost meaningless.

      3. Frank Bough
        WTF?

        Re: One-trick pony

        ARe you suggesting that iOS devices aren't upgradeable to newer OS releases? Have you been following events at all?

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: One-trick pony

        I think you are thinking of Microsoft?

        http://www.automoblog.net/2012/11/06/fordmicrosoft-sync-technology-connects-five-millionth-vehicle/

      5. Ommerson
        FAIL

        Re: One-trick pony

        You seem to be falling into the trap that many others are doing, This statement is simply not true. Lots of QNX in embedded applications (also a lot of Linux and VxWorks too FWIW).

        Whilst BB10 might be build with QNX at its core, you definitely not assume that devices using QNX have anything of the extra stuff that BB10 brings to the party, or that there is suddenly any kind of interoperability.

        Your assertion is about as useful as saying that because Android is based on a Linux kernel, a Linux server must therefore have similarities or capabilities of Android.

    2. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: What you're saying is that RIM still makes a good phone.

      Did we just read the same article? The one I read was about BB 10 the OS, didn't really mention the device it runs on....

      1. danR2

        Re: What you're saying is that RIM still makes a good phone.

        I guess you read a different article from this one:

        "Opinion BlackBerry users have a love-hate relationship with their phones. The devices were often forced upon users rather than chosen. At the same time, the handhelds were the most usable and useful communications gadgets you could put in your pocket."

        Most of the story is about phones. And I'm saying RIM is a phone-maker. Granted. And RIM won't go much further than that.

        1. sabroni Silver badge

          Re: What you're saying is that RIM still makes a good phone.

          Oh right, you read the first paragraph and then posted. All the words after that bit you posted are about BB10.

          You are right about RIM making phones though. Well done. No really, well done.

          1. danR2

            Re: What you're saying is that RIM still makes a good phone.

            And then the final 3 paragraphs of the article includes BB10 in the mix. I'm likewise addressing both. I'm not constrained to calculate how much of an article (and of course I read the article) includes what, and then precisely match a comment proportionately.

            Honestly, some of these BB/RIM posters make iZombies almost look intelligent

    3. JimboSmith Silver badge

      Re: One-trick pony

      I've got a playbook thanks, bought three one for me and two as Christmas presents.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh wow.

    I never thought I'd say this but it looks pretty good.

    TWO app at the same time without pressing HOME then clicking on the app icon HOPING that it didn't close?

    Shoot. I mean, it doesn't sound that impressive but man... they've read my mind. That and also work and home profile feature looks good. I always use that kind of feature, particularly on my browser bookmarks.

    For me though, the looks is also important. Their BB7 touch just didn't appeal to me. If the new phone looks anything like the leaked shots... well they look pretty nice too.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why can't your Windows mobes do this?

    Going on how this industry is, it's probably patented.

  11. James 51

    Wonder if I will be able to upgrade mid-contract.

    1. TheRealRoland

      @james 51

      Of course you will be able to upgrade. As long as you pay the full price. But don't blame that on RIM - blame that on the carrier. And yourself, for signing an x-year contract with an early termination fee.

      I know; sounds harsh. But this will happen over and over unless more people start complaining / haggling about it.

      I, For one, will welcome my new blackberry. I'm holding off until the qwerty one has been released.

      I'm also hoping that in the US Verizon will carry both, instead having to switch... Bastards.

  12. mickey mouse the fith
    Thumb Down

    The Blackberry storm (or storm 2, cant remember, the one with the clicky screen) that i had was the most unreliable phone Iv ever had. It would randomly loose all network conectivity, and only a battery pull and (very slow) reboot got it going again. Maybe I had a faulty device, but that coupled with the `blackberry tax` means i would never buy a Blackberry again. All the decent apps were bloody expensive as well.

    The clicky screen that got round the limitations of the not very responsive resistive screen and the holster detection were cool though.

    1. sinfocomar
      Thumb Up

      I agree: the Storm sucked. But that was RIMs first attempt at a touch screen phone. They've gotten much better at it. BB6 and 7 touchphones are waaaaay better. From the handson videos I can see they are very good.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too little, too late?

    Good luck to them but my shop has been an ardent BB supporter for years and they're now planning to move away to the big fruity one's offerings. I know at least one other 1000+ employee company that's doing the same.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Too little, too late?

      Moving to Apple for business use?

      Reminds me of the old VW Golf advert...

      "This is the man who moved into gold, just as the clever money moved out...."

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgHlAdSpn7Y

      Been there, tried that, phone went back in under 7 days (thank goodness for distance selling regulations).

  14. Christian Berger

    Actual IMAP?

    Or does it still require a BES?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Actual IMAP?

      My playbook works with actual imap. It's also the only email client I've ever used that was able to go out and figure out the correct settings for my work email just from the email address, and our settings are not easily guessed so it had the information somewhere.

    2. bazza Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Actual IMAP?

      @Christian Berger

      You've not needed a BES for a long time already... If you've no exchange server for a BES you point your phone at an IMAP server (or POP or MS's ActiveSync) and off you go.

      Except it's a bit cleverer than that. What you're actually doing is pointing BlackBerry's Internet Services at your server. That talks to your server for you, and when it notices a new message sends a push notification to your phone.

      Why bother with all that? It means your phone doesn't have to poll a server or hold a connection open at all, both of which suck battery life badly and consumes some of your data allowance (ask iPhone or Android users...). RIM can do this because they're in on the operator's cellular network and send a push through the low layer radio signalling. Apple and Google have to go over IP with the phone's transmitter repeatedly switched on.

      BlackBerry's push is consequently fast, especially when pointed at something like Hotmail (ActiveSync - I'm getting near instant notifications). The same mechanism is used for Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc, so all of those are equally efficient and fast. BlackBerry's way also means you stand good a chance of getting a full busy day out of a single charge. All of this is well worth the £5 a month in my opinion.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Actual IMAP?

        Agree its a fast notification. We have a BES connected to our Exchange server. In the office, I tend to get a ping from my Blackberry telling me I've got an email before Outlook in front of me on the desktop tells me about it.

      2. JimboSmith Silver badge

        Re: Actual IMAP?

        I can get several days out of my blackberry (9700) and have been the envy of many of my friends because of that. are the

      3. Christian Berger

        Re: Actual IMAP?

        "Except it's a bit cleverer than that. What you're actually doing is pointing BlackBerry's Internet Services at your server. That talks to your server for you, and when it notices a new message sends a push notification to your phone."

        OK, so my e-mail is still going, in unencrypted form, through a server owned by BlackBerry? That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

        BTW, IMAP can do exactly that. My e-mail client doesn't poll for e-mails yet when an e-mail arrives it's there instantly. Just with normal IMAP, no special trickery involved, just a TCP/IP connection staying open and the server sending a message to the client when there's something.

  15. The New Turtle

    Will BB's natural target market - the workforce - be big enough now to save the company? Now you can bring your own devices to work it may not be enough.

    Sounds good though.

  16. Sil

    The UI may be efficient but it sure looks ugly.

    Also there are many use cases where WP7.5 lets you do what you want quite faster than iOS/Android and it isn't apparent in this short article that BB10 will be better - of course one can't expect 3 pages to cover the whole enchilada.

    To me it's quite simple, as long as manufacturers will continue to produce phones with too little RAM, multitasking won't be satisfying.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      BB 10 RAM

      I believe the BB 10 developer phone has 2Gbytes.

  17. Anonymous Coward 101

    We just need RIM to be taken over by HP...

    ...and promptly wasted.

    1. sinfocomar
      Flame

      Re: We just need RIM to be taken over by HP...

      RIM is doing fine. HP on the other hand might benefit from a takeover.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: We just need RIM to be taken over by HP...

        It wouldn't. HP would run through the cash of whoever took it over. HP would benefit from being broken up. Let the individual divisions sink or swim on their own. Some of them would probably do quite well.

        (I suspect that goes for many large companies - once a certain size is reached it is hard to understand what another layer of management can actually bring to the table.)

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dawg

    Yo dawg, I heard you like phones with cameras, so I took a picture of a phone with a camera, with a phone that has a camera.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Darn...

    Was hoping to hear about the work/personal partitioning (or whatever the call it) in practice. Being able to protect your business data and apps from Facebook (or whatever) sniffing and pulling is an interesting move in terms of privacy and mobile OS architecture... IMHO of course.

    Was also curious about the Android app support (i.e. does it really work, if so what's it like).

    That said, it's good to hear that there may be life still in RIM. I know a lot of folks love to hate them... and let's be honest - they have made it pretty easy. At the end of the day, more competition in the market is a good thing even if you're a fanboi, fandroid or windozer.

    1. handy

      Re: Darn...

      I imagine Android support will be close to what is currently offered on the PB.

      It essentially emulates the environment, making about 60-70% of apps work. I tend to however prefer using native apps. BB10 though will have the largest number of apps from day 1 of any new platform. They have really been pushing 3rd party developers, to prevent past mistakes.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They have really been pushing 3rd party developers

        yeah, by offering them cash! BlackBerry 10 app developers lured with $10,000 bonus Rather cheekily they require your app to make a grand before they give you 10 grand, and it's puny US dollars not proper notes with a picture of Liz on, but even so very pushy. In fact it almost smacks of desperation. Or realism. Probably one of those two....

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Darn...

        60-70% of Android apps will work - which of course really means 30-40% will NOT work - fancy those odds?

        Glass half empty.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Darn...

          30-40% of the fart apps and snake clones won't work? Aw crap.

    2. bazza Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Darn...

      I want to hear more about that too. It looks like RIM have a really good trick that no one else does.

      What's the point of a company iPhone if it gets locked down by the company so that you can't Facebook, install apps, etc? It would be shiny and useless.

      RIM's new tricks look like you would get the best of both worlds :)

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BB10 is good

    I did tell you so. There's been plenty of preview videos.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: BB10 is good

      But then I also told you it was shit. I'm so conflicted!

  21. DJ 2
    Thumb Down

    I ditched Blackberry ( after 5 phones )

    Because of the days of outage last year, if you don't have a connection to the BB servers and a contract with them payed by your phone provider then you can't surf the web, or pick up mail.

    I have an Iphone 5 now because RIM's service is just terrible.

    1. Katie Saucey
      Facepalm

      Re: I ditched Blackberry ( after 5 phones )

      If I ditched a carrier (or OS, company, brand, etc) each year because of technical problems or outages, the weight the trash would have long since collapsed into a world gobbling singularity. The only communications tech (email, fax, SMS, IM, fucking Canada post, etc) that has never failed me in all my life, is the plain old landline (about the only thing Bell Canada can do right).

      1. Andus McCoatover
        Windows

        LANDLINE??!!

        Christ, where I live, these were practically obsoleted aeons ago. Companies (less so, nowadays), and broadband modems are really the only users. I know absolutely NO-ONE who has a POTS/fixed 'Speaking Telephone' nowadays.

        We used to get free 'phone directories, which were getting thinner by the year. Now, they don't bother - for Oulu, it'd be a few sheets of A4...Even the 'Yellow Pages' all have mobile numbers.

        (Having been told a cheque - obsolete, too - from HMRC would cost about €100 to cash, as HRMC isn't a recognised bank ?!? I'm in despair of my settlement from Equitable Life's compensation. Bit short of toilet paper at the moment, so might come in useful one 'curried' night....)

        1. Alan Dougherty
          Pint

          Re: LANDLINE??!!

          HMRC isn't a bank, it's the tax man, yeahhhh; it's the tax man.

          Sould €100 seem too small

          Be thankfull he doesn't take it all.

          Looks like it's well past beer-o-clock for me....

        2. RICHTO
          Mushroom

          Re: LANDLINE??!!

          An HMRC cheque will be issued by a bank. Probably the Bank of England....

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I ditched Blackberry ( after 5 phones )

        Canadian post sounds amazing. All I get from our post lady is "Hello".

        (Mind you I agree with the post. The outage was annoying, but it was just one of many foul ups, like Windows Azure on 29th Feb. and the O2 problem. The fact is that with the rapid upscaling of infrastructure everybody is going to have failures at some point. The important things is, do they acknowledge them and fix them?

    2. sinfocomar
      Happy

      Re: I ditched Blackberry ( after 5 phones )

      iCloud has died several times this year alone. Just say it: you wanted the pretty phone with the wider screen. No shame on admiting it. Now RIM has one as well. You can return and leave the old apple dog behind. :)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I ditched Blackberry ( after 5 phones )

        When iCloud fails you can still read your gmail or exchange account. You can still browse the web. All your apps still work. You can still 'do stuff'. When RIM's infrastructure goes off the air, if you're on a corporate contract your BB can.. well.. make calls and that's about it. Not quite a housebrick, but not by much.

        Jon

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I ditched Blackberry ( after 5 phones )

          There's still the wireless connection to get web, non-Blackberry emails.

          I'm not dependent on the BB for contact so I weathered the outage, but other providers have outages too, and you'd think RIM have now taken pains to make their system more resilient as they probably can't afford a second outage.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    After Bold woes.

    I'll never touch another blackberry again, it had more bugs than an Amazonian rainforest.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Split screen

    "On rival mobile operating systems, it's a pain to switch between apps when you simply need to compare information shown in each one. Here's some thoughtful design in BB10 that makes that redundant: two views overlaying each other."

    Andrew, did you omit on purpose the fact that the Samsung Galaxy III and Note II have the possibility of spliting the screen? Or it's just you never touched them?

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Split screen

      He didn't say all mobile OSes.

      C.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Re: Split screen

        "He didn't say all mobile OSes.

        C."

        "On rival mobile operating systems.."

        He didnt say or he didnt mean it? Anyway, who cares? For some reason Andrew just can't stand the success of Google's Android, and he even praise Nokia for their Lumia phones, the same company who appointed a Trojan for CEO, who burned Andrews former love Symbian and ditched a superb OS that was MeeGo, which serves as an inspiration for BB10, ironically...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Split screen

      They run two applications in half screens, don't they? This is something else entirely. The views can overlay.

    3. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Split screen

      I'm glad it does that. I'm just surprised more UIs don't do it too.

      Point is: power users are poorly served by fondleslab and smartphone UIs. And overlaying two apps is considered a "power user" operation.

      1. Jos

        Re: Split screen

        Hi Andrew, talking about "power" (the word triggered me). My last two bb phones and my current one has absolute shite batteries which die every 5 months, but I heard rumours that the bb10 hardware uses solar backpanel and kinetic charching as well.

        Is there any possible way to have a (pre-) hardware review on the handsets? My current 9900 is going to make a vertical drop very soon if they don't fix the battery issue and I'm doubting between waiting for Jan 31 or just switch to S3, which I used a lot as well at customer sites...

        Bb10 software reviews are plenty about.

        (Send from my bb ;-). )

    4. Joerg
      FAIL

      Re: Split screen

      The split screen thing is a design failure.

      The screen on any smartphone is just too small and that feature has no usability at all, no matter how much the marketing tries to spin that.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Hope it works but a little insight into the situation there got into

    RIM was the greatest phone wise and that changed. What realy changed was the adoption of 3g with usable battery life. Upto that point RIM with there proprioety protocol which was designed to be the most effecient for email communication over 2g worked realy well and gave the user a phone with a battery life that was not shy of the task at hand. This stood out head and shoulders against the rest who were in effect just phones. Now with 3G and WIFI becomming consumer accesable price wise for contracts the move of mobiles to take advantage of this become viable. We then had the bandwidth and respective battery to make doing email and other more internet only domain tasks on the phone. Batterys improved, chipsets got more bettery effecient and the ability to display that information became easier. Touchscreen also become viable at power and size levels to be used alot better than the early SE P800/P900 range of phones and things moved forward. It was this stage that RIM lost its edge. They as a business service biased provider was busy thinking all was well and focusing upon consumer handsets. This demisished the attention upon there core buisness which they let tick along as it worked. RIM did try but with there complicated development kits and the like the only realy people developing for there phones were either ex RIM employee's or had contacts in the company who they could get there answears from. In many respects they did not consumerise there development kit enough and with that comparisions to how the symbian development kits played out had equal concerns and that was a more tested development enviroment.

    So for RIM do do well they not only need the shiney robust hardware but they also need development kits and the support for those developers too make it happen. For most users there are only 5 or so applications they actualy use but they do like having the ability to have the other 5000+ applications if they want, even tif they don't need or want them. This won't change but hopefully RIM will have hardware that takes a few leassons from the older hardware they had. Make it robust, look at the whole IP water and dust drop level tests and capatalise upn what RIM was also known for - Phones that were robust, worked and would just pass any carrier testing with flying colours first time every time. That is an area that RIM have let slip. Cheap phones are fine, but a robust sturdy phone is worth a lifetime of love.

    Sadly whilst I expect the release of the new OS to win many blogger fans the damage already done by RIM itself and the market forums have already given it a uphill battle and a market that is still responding to those concerns. The spat of moves away form the platform on the eve of its new better platform is hardly supportive.

    No matter what happens, the OS and respective IP that RIM holds will still be valuable nomatter how the market responds. There again that can be said of all past great Canadian technology companies . In summary Canada - great technology and initiative failed by some of the worst managment and internal politics you could ever embrace.

  25. The FunkeyGibbon
    Meh

    Honestly, too little too late

    It's not the hardware (fairly unspectacular) or the mobile OS (middling to poor) that has been my biggest problem, it's BES. The whole thing is just awful. The number of tweaks, battery pulls and hacks needed to get the damn thing to remain in sync with Exchange is painful. No OS upgrade is going to change the fact that the underlying tech that makes BB painful for me.

    1. sinfocomar
      Happy

      Re: Honestly, too little too late

      Battery pulls? thats veeery old news. Doesnt happen anymore. This is a completely new platform+OS. I already see its reliability on my Playbook. Awesome stuff.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Honestly, too little too late

      Agred, that is an area they shoud and could of stepped away from and made more money. If RIM had made a dedicated 1U server that communicated with whatever mailstore you abused be it a unix IMAP server or exchange server. They could of sold a box/support in a packaged up format that made there life and the customers life eaiser and instead of doing the kneww jerk dropping of the BES software they could of made even more and still be seen as being better value for money. They would of then also managed to tie themselfs into the company in a way that made them stand out even further above the others. This they did not do and you too felt there pain for not doing it.

    3. NogginTheNog

      Re: Honestly, too little too late

      Not my experience at all: my BES just works, with pretty much no further maintenance after originally setting it up. It syncs everything seamlessly, in fact emails will often ping up on the phone maybe 30 seconds BEFORE Outlook, which impresses me for one!

      I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what BB10 and the new handsets can do.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Honestly, too little too late

        I think what we are seeing here is the difference in competence between two different IT departments, just as there are IT departments that make Exchange seem like the buggiest software ever and others that make it taken for granted.

  26. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Quantum Communication Devices

    SMARTR Blackberry Users are HyperRadioProActive Drivers of an Evolving Virtual Operating System.

    And Do No Evil is a Great Game Starting Point.

    cc. Peter Norvig ... Director of Research Google

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Holsters?

    Wtf are these holsters you talk of? Are you all cowboys?!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: Holsters?

      they are cases that you can attach to a belt and have a small magnet it that will put your phone into standby when the magnetic sensor on the phone detects a magnetic source.

      Nowadays it is a feature alot of phones offer, albiet most cases tend not to have the magnets.

      But they are nice, funky and one of those functions that just work so well that many don't even know it is there.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Putting a phone on your belt is never 'funky'.

        People who, without shame or irony, call themselves enterprise architects, put phones in holsters on belts. And it's not a look to copy. And it is in no way 'funky'.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Putting a phone on your belt is never 'funky'.

          But is practical - there's also the leather-effect wallet/pouch that does the same thing.

          Holsters and other belt clips stop cases where leaning over to read the serial on the back of a box results in phone leaving shirt pocket and crashing to floor or being scratched to buggery by your car keys and loose change.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Putting a phone on your belt is never 'funky'.

          Aha! One thumbs down from a holster wearing enterprise architect type. I told you so.

        3. The_Regulator
          Windows

          Re: Putting a phone on your belt is never 'funky'.

          People who, without shame or irony, call themselves enterprise architects, put phones in holsters on belts. And it's not a look to copy. And it is in no way 'funky'.

          hahahah, totally agree, the last time I wore a phone on my belt was ummm NEVER because I do not want to look like one of those middle aged balding men who also used to wear a Bum Bag too!!!

          If this is a selling point RIM has some problems.......enjoy BB10 while I enjoy my shiny new red Lumia 920!!!

  28. o_0

    Windows Phones can flag messages?

    I'm running 7.5 - I can flag a message? wtf?

    1. The_Regulator

      Re: Windows Phones can flag messages?

      If you are syncing over exchange yes you can flag messages (at least on my win phone 8 I can), simply hold down button on message and then click on "set flag" done.

  29. redniels

    Did you ever really paid attention to the playbook?

    I guess not. Its really stupifying to see all these journo's falling over exclaiming how great bb10 is going to be.. Newsflash: it's already here. On a device you guys, including you dear writer, written in the ground a good 1.5 years ago. A device with an OS which makes ios & android feel hopelessly outdated.. Example: button(s)? Really? What's the use for that when you have a touch screen? Bb "gets" touch. Another one: real multitasking, no suspend to background ios shit. A real taskmanager. Etc. Etc. Pb os/2 (joke) and the upcoming bb10 os are real "modern" os-es. This is Written on my playbook. The best 200 euros i spend in a long time. And no, i don't work for or affiliated with RIM.

    1. b166er

      Re: Did you ever really paid attention to the playbook?

      You've obviously not had the calendar app die on you then.

      I mean die as in completely dead, as in 'security wipe' the PlayBook to resurrect.

      As in NOT something that would happen on Android,

  30. handle

    LED?

    "You know what's "incoming" without taking it out of its case - you can tell that from the LED indicator.

    ...

    Nobody else does this."

    The Huawei G300 £100 Android phone does this. And I would be surprised if it's the only one.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looking forward to seeing the hardware

    Still using a Nokia E6 and was all set to go down the WinPho route having borrowed this Lumia 800 from work. In general it's not bad but i can't get on with the touch screen keypad. I hope RIM keep providing physical keypads.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    network providers are the biggest problem with blackberry

    i signed up for a blackberry with t-moble being told i had BES service.

    worked great for 3 months then all of a sudden stopped - i kept beating up on my IT department after, t-mobile told me all was working , to eventually find out that it was t-mobile that had turned the BES service/connectivity off andt cant turn it back on again on the contract i am on. they dont seem wiling to provide me the option even at a price.

    i lose the will to live after you keep gettingshuffled around customer service - now will just wait till contract up and find someone else who can provide the service i was sold.

    And dont say ofcom.......waste of time and enegy as well.

    1. Darryl

      network providers are the biggest problem period

      FIFY

  33. SpitefulGOD

    Huzzah

    The sooner we get back to RIM and Nokia running the phonesphere the better

    1. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Re: Huzzah

      Rim are dead - niche player at best. They simply don't have the eco-systems that the main 3 OSs do....WP is already outselling them - and doubled sales in the last year - ansd dounbled agin since the launch of WP8 in a month. Rim's sales halved in the last year....

  34. rjd
    IT Angle

    I get slightly irked when blogs say you can do folders like iOS. My current BlackBerry 7 phone does folders, as did my BlackBerry before then with OS6 and so did my BlackBerry before that with OS5 and even the OS before that. All BEFORE iOS introduced folders.

  35. Jess

    BIS is a two edged sword.

    On one hand it is a very cheap way of being online.

    On the other handwithout it, most apps are cut off the internet, even if you have wifi available.

    The time it went down, I lost a day's work because I didn't get a message,

    When I went to Belgrade, there was free wifi everywhere, but the BlackBerry was cut off from BIS, because it knew I was in the wrong country. Fortunately I had a few apps that could use wifi directly, but the big loss was Google maps. (One of the reasons I now have an N8 as well, downloadable maps.)

    If everything fell back to wifi (or APN, if wanted) when BIS went down, then it would be a really good system. But as yet, most of it doesn't (The facebook app does though.)

    1. bazza Silver badge

      Re: BIS is a two edged sword.

      @Jess

      "When I went to Belgrade, there was free wifi everywhere, but the BlackBerry was cut off from BIS, because it knew I was in the wrong country."

      It's never been a problem for me, my BB on BIS has worked fine all over the world. Even in Japan, where BB doesn't really have a market presence. Also if you have wifi available it's not really sensible that country should matter: most puzzling. Do you have international roaming enabled with your contract?

  36. Jean-Luc
    Thumb Up

    Sweet

    I've always had a soft spot for QNX since the early 90s when I first saw it in 4MB RAM industrial PCs.

    IMHO, RIM and Nokia both dropped the ball in that they didn't modernize their OSs. Say what you want about people wanting shinies. If the OS and dev stack suck hard enough the shinies won't shine much and no one will write apps for them.

    Assuming RIM can execute on a decent story for the devs, get out some good HW and mollify the stockmarkets for a while... assuming all this then we could move out of our current two-horse race.

    And I confess that I am not against the idea of one-vendor solutions. If things don't work, or if the OS doesn't get updated regularly, the hardware guy can't claim it's the OS vendor's fault & vice versa*.

    Honestly, good to see that RIM could, possibly, potentially, hypothetically be making its way back.

    Competition is what we need more of.

    * (given a choice, I'd still probably get a Samsung over a Google phone)

  37. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge
    Go

    ummm

    RIMboi's perhaps

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ummm

      I think you may of RIMbold them.

  38. Nanners
    Thumb Down

    Only $300-$400

    to check your email. Awesome!

  39. kuddlesworth55

    Rim jobs are safe?

  40. JeffyPooh
    Pint

    I'm looking for the "RIM JOBS ARE SAFE" funny comments section...

    As above.

  41. David Simpson 1
    Thumb Down

    It's funny, comparing this to Windows Phone says it all, they aren fighting each other for single digit market share. Good luck to them but their day has passed, both Microsoft and RIM.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Obviously you have not tried out the Nokia Lumia 920......you might want to go take a look some time before getting your fanboi rim job on.

    2. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Microsoft are currently running at about 8% market share in sales with Windows Phone 8....double digits isnt that far away....

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The title brought me here

    Still lmao at "rim jobs" being safe....

  43. WholeAss

    Rim Jobs

    I think they are pretty unsanitary, but maybe they are safe....

  44. conhoolio

    I see what the headline did

    Hehe, RIM jobs...

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so how's the hardware

    Admittedly it has been several years since I touched a Blackberry, but when I last did the feel was that of a cheap plastic gadget. It was the epitome of shoddy.

    So, my question is, do they now have hardware that matches the quality of the OS?

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rimboys

    Lol@rim jobs. This reminded me of the New Official Correct Terminology (it is capitalised so it must be correct) for a Blackbery fanboy as coined by somebody in a thread the other day: rimboy.

  47. Chandy
    Stop

    Android can do all of this

    Yeah, I'm pretty certain that an Android phone could do any of that. The only thing I haven't seen is the 'oooh, special LED flashes' bit, but Android also offers full control over those so if the software doesn't yet exist for that, I'm sure it will soon.

    Unless Blackberry goes open source, it's still as dead as a dead thing.

    Move on..nothing to see here...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Android can do all of this

      LOL BB would never go open source, why would you let proprietary smart phone os into the wild when you have spent years developing and supporting it.....that would be like Windows becoming Linux and would just be plain stupid.

      HTC have LED Notifications I believe on their phones right? You should know this though being the open source warrior champion biatchhhh

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Android can do all of this

      Android CAN do LED control - LightFlow supports it on pretty much any handset with the hardware - from the Google Galaxy Nexus to the Samsung Galaxy S3, and HTC and LG and Sony, and etc...

      It can also do just about everything else that is useful in BB10, except pay mothly to get your e-mail. That is much more of an IOS/Microsoft way of doing things. Anyway, ever heard of PGP? That's true end to end e-mail encription, not like the BB where your server connection is encrypted, but anyone can intercept the e-mail in transit to the server ROFL.

      Android can also do software screenshots, as can IOS and probably even WinPho. I mean WTF? taking pictures of the screen is so 1980's or something. Is it a software limitation or a human limitation? Gah!

  48. Philip Bune
    Facepalm

    The Pain of BB

    Have a 9860 phone for work biggest pile of poo going, no one in the office likes them as they randomly dial people or hang up mid conversation as it registers your ear touching the screen. Had a first gen bold which was OK but never BB again plz.

  49. d0ubs

    Interesting... however regarding the Led notification remark, apparently the author does not know Light Flow on Android...

  50. jasnils

    Which web browser accompanies BB10?

    Did they stick an Opera Mini or Opera Mobile in there?

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