QNX may be Posix-compatible, but it is in no way 'a UNIX'.
Vulture takes BlackBerry's Passport through customs
Absent for almost a year, BlackBerry has returned to the fray with the striking Passport, an updated OS and Blend – a secure desktop companion for the phone. BlackBerry Passport Daring to be different: BlackBerry's Passport There are two distinguishing features in this device: first, its display is square and very wide. …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 8th October 2014 13:51 GMT eclairz
Are you using it right?
"It's quite handy to tip the device 45 degrees when reading a web page, and use the QWERTY area for scrolling"
Shouldn't that be rotate it by 90 degrees?
Also not sure why the Paratek antenna would change the volume of the phone? Can't you just increase the volume if it sounding a "little quiet", or is the Z30 speaker better quality?
I have the passport myself, I too wish it had the function 4 line of keyboard, but it's still much better than virtual keyboards, as I don't have to keep lifting my fingers off the screen to see the keyboard, or even look at the phone when typing and talking to someone. Took a week but now quite used to the keyboard, I miss inputting numbers via keyboard and the virtual keyboard for that is on the wrong side imo.
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Wednesday 8th October 2014 15:49 GMT wolfetone
Re: Good
I've owned a BlackBerry Z10 for over a year, but had to put it in to the shop to get fixed for nearly 3 months (Carphone Warehouse's fault - NOT BlackBerry). I had to make do, for the first 3 weeks, with an Android phone.
While travelling to my mom's I had to write an email, and it just wasn't happening. So I removed the SD Card and SIM Card and threw it in a lake. Spent £10 unlocking an older BlackBerry Bold and used it happily until my Z10 came back.
I've had it back for the last month, and I've missed it. It's one of those weird feelings, you lose something you don't realise how dependant you are on it, and when you get it back you never want to let it go.
What I'm getting at is that you should really ditch the Android and go with BlackBerry. Quote me, you won't be dissapointed.
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Wednesday 8th October 2014 20:54 GMT wolfetone
Re: Good
"You dropped it."
No, although I was worried about it bending.
Every time I made a call the person on the other end couldn't hear me. So I gave it to them to fix. They "fixed" it within 10 days, but they actually hadn't. So it then got sent off to BlackBerry.
I went on holiday and 4 weeks passed, came back and I hadn't heard anything. So I went to the shop and asked what was going on, the phone hadn't even left the store to be fixed. Took them another 3 weeks after this to send it off to BlackBerry, at which point it came back fixed.
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Saturday 11th October 2014 09:48 GMT Barry Rueger
Re: Good
I went on holiday and 4 weeks passed, came back and I hadn't heard anything. So I went to the shop and asked what was going on, the phone hadn't even left the store to be fixed. Took them another 3 weeks after this to send it off to BlackBerry, at which point it came back fixed.
This is one of my real big gripes with BlackBerry - absolutely no end user support. No matter what your problem is, you have to work through either a retailer or wireless company to get near the people who might actually solve a problem.
That can do nothing but delay repairs or service issues.
At least with Android you have a reasonable likelihood of finding someone on-line who knows the underlying code well enough to figure out a fix. And if that fails, you can actually file a bug report. Or install Cyanogenmod.
No such options exists for BlackBerry.*
* Yes, yes, Crackberry does exist, and Blackberry's own forums, but compared the Android equivalents they really don't cut it. Too often the answer that you get back is either "That's a feature, not a bug" or "Reset the device to factory install."
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Wednesday 8th October 2014 13:51 GMT JDX
Keyboard won't be a gamechanger for BB
Not because it's not any good, but because if it is other people will copy it. It might be a gamechanger for phones but not BB specifically. Everyone (except iOS) has Swype now. Microkia and Android models with such things can no doubt appear easily enough for those who want them.
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Wednesday 8th October 2014 13:51 GMT theOtherJT
So, interesting but flawed then.
Such a shame. I still yearn for a good side-slide keyboard like my sadly deceased Moto Milestone had. For all the marketing BS about it making the phone "Too thick" I can't imagine who it is that's picking up a phone and thinking "God, I wish this were thinner". Now, _narrower_ I can understand, because you can't wrap your hand around it. _Shorter_ makes sense, because otherwise you end up with nasty hacks like the iOS tap to shunt downwards... but thinner? Once you're down around the 12 - 15mm mark it really doesn't matter any more. It's already thin enough!
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Wednesday 8th October 2014 22:56 GMT bazza
Yes, it was a good review. Orlowski has clearly actually spent some time actually using it.
To contrast read the review of the Passport on The Inquirer, particularly the bit where they mark it down merely because the "software still feels unfamilar". Well duh, if it's different it will be unfamiliar, but that does not make it worse.
A reviewer does actually have to become familiar with a device before they can pronounce upon it's worth. And so thanks go to Orlowski for taking the time.
Oddly enough the review makes me more inclined to upgrade to a Z30 (got a Z10 at the mo), but I am torn between the two. Ultimately I don't suppose BB care which one I go for, just so long as it's one of the two.
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Wednesday 8th October 2014 17:43 GMT captain veg
der!
> If it's just a PDA, I wondered, why include a cellular chipset at all?
Same reason I tether my netbook and used to have a Vodafone Mobile Connect card in my portable. In fact the very reason for having a smartphone at all, rather than a disconnected PDA.
I have never wanted a mobile phone, only ever a wirelessly connected pocket sized computer. The ability to make calls as well is entirely incidental.
-A.
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Wednesday 8th October 2014 18:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Best of both worlds
Unfortunately for BB it looks to me as if, once I get 10.3.1 and Blend, the combination of a one handed operation phone (Q10) and Blend running on an Android tablet is going to be the best possible combination. It's a pity the Playbook was so premature, a modern version with half the weight and twice the resolution, acting as a big screen when needed, would have really done the job.
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Thursday 9th October 2014 05:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Good article, but a few corrections...
* The frame is stainless steel, not aluminum.
* There is a _swipe_ gesture to go between messages. Use a mirrored 'L' gesture to go to the next newer message:
......^
......|
o--->
or make the vertical part of the swipe downwards to go to the next older message.
* When composing an email, it is not necessary to touch the screen as much as you might think.
'c' to compose.
use the appropriate keyboard letter shortcut to choose the email account you want to use.
simply start typing to select the recipient. Hit <enter> after each recipient.
Hit <enter> to go to (or bypass) the CC: field
Hit <enter> to get to the subject field
Hit <enter> to get to, and begin typing in the text field.
When you've composed and completed your email, reach, for the first time, to the screen, and tap the 'Send' button on the screen.
* While tapping on the screen doesn't wake the phone (as you say) (arguably a good thing, as it prevents pocket dialing and messaging), a simple swipe up from the bottom of the screen does wake the phone. Once you've done it a few times, it seems simple and elegant. A side benefit is that if you swipe up, but don't lift your finger from the screen, you can quickly "peek" at the lock screen notifications, then swipe back DOWN the screen (again, without lifting your finger) and the display automatically blanks. This is great for surreptitious peeks while in a meeting, if you don't want a shoulder surfer gazing at your content, or just to save battery power.
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Thursday 9th October 2014 19:37 GMT Calyth
Shift and Function
While there isn't much you could do if you have an odd case of weird casing, such as typing out a javaCamelCaseFunction(), the autocorrect should hopefully get the capitalizations right.
For symbols, swipe down on the physical keyboard, which gives you the symbol virtual keyboard. Note that they map to the 3 rows, and you could hit the physical keys to enter the matching symbols.
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Friday 10th October 2014 02:30 GMT Jim84
Is the touch enabled keyboard good for placing the caret somewhere in a body of text?
The reviewer didn't answer this, hopefully because the new touch qwerty keyboard makes it as easy to place the caret somewhere into position in a body of text as did the old trackpad on the old Bolds.
The was removed in the Q5 and caused all sorts of grief as The Register pointed out: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/10/blackberry_q5_review/
When I got my Galaxy Note 2 with its large screen I imagined tapping in long posts (like this one). In reality the inability of placing the caret back in a body of text to edit it made this too painful. We've got the scrolling ability of a mouse with touchscreens, but not the pointing ability (yet).
I definitely think four rows of keys would have been the way to go. Stick the blackberry logo on the top of the device on the back (like Apple does). Then you'd get a decent width spacebar and function keys.
The next Q10/Z3 iPhone alike from blackberry could or should have a home button on the foot of the device, and it could have the functionality of the old Bold trackpads when typing with the virtual keyboard onscreen (as well as fingerprint ID etc).
Also I don't know how hard it would be in practice, but rather than edge backlighting the keyboard with white LEDS how about having a blue and white LED under each key, with the white LED lighting up the main functions of the keyboard, and the blue LEDs in the top left corner lighting up the alternate keyboard accessed by pressing the function key.
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Friday 10th October 2014 10:40 GMT Sulphur Man
There's clearly some bright and intelligent thinking at BB that didnt get culled or run off to the competitors.
This is an interesting but flawed product from a much leaner company who are smart enough to realise that emulating their rivals is not more commercially viable than creating something unique like this.
Could prove a great live 'test' product, which will lend it's most successful ideas into a more universal form factor (ie narrower) coupled to fully mature OS.
Good luck, BB, there's still room for you at the table.
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Sunday 26th October 2014 16:08 GMT Jim84
Re: Missed Trick
Yeah but... then there would be no backlight which is even more essential for a phone keyboard than one on a laptop. Although maybe they could light the keyboard from the sides like a Kobo ereader? Still, I think bright lit up keys are what is needed. I'm wondering how difficult it would be to just stick 2 LEDS under each key, with a blue one lighting up only the top corner of the key where a number (usually dark) sits and this alternate keyboard is activated using the function key. There might be some real cost or technical difficulties blocking either of these proposals though?
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