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back to article BlackBerry's final QWERTY floats past the rumour mill

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but what if BlackBerry had produced a smart, secure Android QWERTY in 2011, rather than waiting until 2017? A photo purporting to be BlackBerry’s final phone – which happens to be a smart, secure Android QWERTY expected in Q1 next year, popped up at the weekend, inviting counterfactual histories …

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  1. Jess

    The issues with my Q5 are down to it having an unfinished OS, the way the OS is now, is the way it should have been within a year of release of BB10. (Still no auto power on/off facility)

    They probably should have made the top end and corporate phones dual boot BB10 and BB7, (they could even have had the choice of Corporate mode , Home mode 7 and Home mode 10 for business users)

    Generally the android compatibility is pretty good, problems being lack of play services, some DRM stuff and the screen being square.

    6 2 Reply
    1. James 51
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      No idea why you got a downvote. Have an upvote.

      3 1 Reply
  2. James 51

    BB10 hasn't been updated significantly for a while and I still find my Q10 a lot easier to use than my S6.

    Hope this has a replaceable battery.

    2 2 Reply
  3. Christian Berger

    Blackberry never was an engineering lead company

    If it was, they'd have an open standard allowing for 3rd party servers, right from the start. Their insistance on only allowing it to work with their own closed source BES was the reason why it ultimately failed.

    Add to that the promis of security which was regularly broken, and you have a recepie for doom.

    0 0 Reply
  4. m0rt

    I miss my passport. Biggest thing I miss is the touch sensitive keyboard pad thing. Scrolling, cursor movement etc etc.

    If this has it, then I will buy it. As long as I can get 2 days out of it.

    1 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    625?

    I really hope not. The 652 is now the mid-range device of choice, 808-range in CPU power but a little underspecified on graphics. I don't think the 625 is going to have nearly enough longevity. The DTEK60 has an 820, and is the first Android BB I might consider buying if my present phone dies on me.

    0 0 Reply
  6. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    Too late, already gone for a Priv

    I'm still not at all happy with the fact it doesn't have a removable battery, or can't be rooted, but it's the only keyboard Android in town, and my modded Photon Q's battery was slowly dying, it's becoming difficult to run all the apps I want due to ongoing Android bloat, and there's other things I'd rather do than drag out the dremel to give it extra battery.

    288 quid on a Black Friday sale was too good to pass up. The only possible contender is a Moto Z with a (unreleased) Moto Mod hardware keyboard, or this upcoming Blackberry Mercury. Both will be wallet crushingly expensive.

    Still tempted by a Blackberry Passport after looking at it extensively, even though I know the app compatibility is very lacking.

    1 0 Reply
    1. En_croute
      Reply Icon

      Re: Too late, already gone for a Priv

      Wife has the Passport - loves that it's

      a) Querty

      b) Different

      c) Everyone asks "What's THAT?- Speak & Spell?"

      The Hub is good - I understand it's replicated on the Priv.

      Microphone is damaged - so she's hard to hear when calling, and charging port is loose and some cables don't charge properly - so considering the Priv - as I'm on Android, and 1 platform in a household is preferable for the "How do I do this on my phone" queries.

      Where was your reduced Priv on sale?

      0 0 Reply
      1. m0rt
        Reply Icon

        Re: Too late, already gone for a Priv

        Reduced Privs were on the Blackberry direct shop in the UK at that price.

        1 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Because most people want to lose 1/3 or more of their screen real estate to have a hardware keyboard.

    .. seams to me they are still listening to the 5 or 6 very vocal bb fans that are still out there.

    They had their chance to save things a long time back and its long passed, now i think the ships taken on far to much water to save her from the slow decent to davey jones locker..

    2 2 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Couldn't care less about losing some screen to a keyboard.

      Can't go with a Bold full time (which I still own) as it mangles the contacts whenever you add/modify them via the phone - a bug never likely to be resolved..

      My Priv is too top-heavy. The keyboard just doesn't work well at all. End up using the touch-screen the majority of the time, which is the same disaster as every other touch screen. Don't kid yourself that prediction, swipe and all the other nonsense gets anywhere close to how quick you can type on a proper BB keyboard - and without even looking at it.

      If this thing supports the only apps I need, which are pretty much reading the news, RDP and some CCTV systems then I'm laughing. I'll happily take the keyboard so the text/email I spend 90% of my time doing is trouble-free.

      I know the majority love their touch-screens, but the majority also can't type either. Most occassions when I whinge about touch-screens to someone who loves them, they tell me they have NO problems typing on theirs. When invited to watch, I see them pissing about pressing 2 keys every 4 seconds. For proper typing, by someone who can type properly, the keyboard needs to be a physical one - end of.

      2 1 Reply
    2. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      You've never used a physical keyboard phone, have you?

      I'll be shortly getting a Priv - amount of screen lost to physical keyboard : 0%, it slides down under the screen. The screen on this is large.

      I'm currently using a Motorola Photon Q. Amount of screen lost to physical keyboard : 0%, it slides down as landscape under the screen. At the time the screen was quite large.

      I was using a Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro. Amount of screen lost to physical keyboard : 0%, it slides down as landscape under the screen. When released the screen was very large for its time.

      I'm not a Blackberry fan, I'm a physical keyboard fan. I appreciate some of Blackberry's design and software, but didn't go for a Blackberry phone because apps are lacking. Neither am I an unqualified fan of Android - it still has plenty of flaws, but it has the best variety of apps, so that's where you have to go.

      0 0 Reply

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