BlackBerry Priv: After two weeks on test, looks like this is a keeper I seem to have spent my life getting through, testing, and handling a lot of phones. A lot. But I hate phones. I hate all the hundreds of them I have lying around my house and the countless thousands of pounds I have spent on them. I hate that despite having tried, and bought, what seems like every combination possible, …
What disclosure? To be honest, I'd rather the person that reviewed the new blackberry had possessed the old blackberry. Makes perfect sense. I bet most people in the comments are of the "have the old, want the new" variety (or they are trolls come to sentence blackberry to death again).
Time to get down off your high-horse, I think.
How odd, since I was the same way, constantly fiddling with it, until I got a Nexus 5 and after updating to 5.1.1 and loading the Apex launcher on it (and rooting for Titanium Backup), haven't looked back. I'd had a few other Androids as well - Skyrocket 2, Note 1, some Motorola thing - but I haven't felt the need to futz about with this one like the rest. I just use it. Decent screen, decent camera, decent battery life (for my use case), decent phone, wireless charging. Overall a winner in my book.
I did that with my phone, bought it, installed updates as they arrived and used it.
Didn't do any of that launcher stuff, didn't root it, can't AFAIK.
A device should be usable as is, shouldn't need hacking to stop it draining the battery or being repulsive to use.
I will stick with mine and upgrade when I feel flush or it finally succumbs after the umpteenth drop.
I've generally liked my Xperia Pro; unfortunately things don't stand still in the mobile world. The Facebook app consumed increasing amounts of CPU in later releases, and needed so many privileges I had to drop it in favour of a web browser. Web sites have increased in complexity, and despite the fact it's now on Lollipop (third party rom, sort of works..) the hardware just isn't capable.
For a year and a half to two years it was pretty good. Now it's just not fast or reliable enough - might be the third party rom, might be the aging hardware.
I can't say I'm an actual fan of the OS, though, it's mostly improved in each release but it reminds me of the early releases of Windows. Gingerbread was 3.1. Ice Cream Sandwich was 95. Kitkat was OSR2. Lollipop is Windows 98 (unpatched).
The last phones I really liked were Nokia not very smartphones, which had a passable web browser for a year or two, and some Java based apps, but couldn't cut it in the end.
I think BBs problem given recent history is that a lot of people will hold off from buying one for fear it won't be supported in a year's time. Although the keyboard/touchpad is a good idea, would a custom ROM be able to use it? I somehow doubt it.
Enthusiasts managed to keep webOS going longer than anyone expected, but I can't see the business people that will fork out for the (expensive) Priv doing that.
The bootloader cannot be unlocked, according to BB's Head of Devices:
http://www.androidcentral.com/exclusive-interview-blackberrys-president-devices-about-their-first-android-phone
If I read the PDF linked to in the following article correctly, the bootloader is a major security weakness on many Android phones, should the attacker gain physical access for just a minute:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/16/faux_disk_encryption/
I've used Android from 1.6, bought a Passport to replace my Note 3 in Jan as I have always preferred a hardware keyboard and like others, suddenly I stop thinking about how to do stuff on my phone and just got on with doing it. The Passport has been a revelation to me and took me back to how I felt about my Nokia N900 before I switched to droid, that I have a device really focused on function/usability over fashion. I quite like the quirky nature of the device, the square screen, the HUB, the amazing battery life and most of all the truly awesome keyboard and track pad function. I only miss one app that I can't run from Droid land for my Banking and can make do with the .mobi site for that.
I do quite fancy having a play with the PRIV but in all honesty it will have to be significantly "better" than my PP for me to make the switch. Having a normal rectangular ratio is not enough for me, I care little for a curved edge as I always use a case which would cover it anyway. The hardware in itself doesn't appear to be much better than the PP which has never felt slow or lacking to me either. right now I'm feeling less inclined to want to throw X hundred quid at something no better at doing what I want it to than what I have already.
I worked on that phone at Nokia, loved it despite may failings - many of which would which more memory would have fixed.
I used to leave it running a vnc server for remote (graphical using X) access even after I got a new phone.
And I had an N9 for a fleeting moment before leaving, before it was released even, brilliant, sigh indeed.
Same here, I loved my N900 what a device, then got the N9 that was awesome too still working great. Elop killed Nokia, i hate him, Meego was a great OS, unfortunatley my N900 is dead now, it has gone in a continous reboot mode, and i cant flash the OS as i don't have the files. Sigh :)
I thought Jolla would do well, but they took a lot of time to come with a phone if they could release a phone soon after N9, that would have got them some market share, but as it was a small company, marketing and distribution took ages for Jolla phones to go other markets. wonder if they are doing well.
Where have you been? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/06/blackberry_priv_review/
A snag with the Nexus "get all updates" approach is while this is good for security, there can be downsides in usability elsewhere. Namely my Nexus 4's camera used to work very well but, after some long-forgotten update, forgot how to autofocus properly and quickly.
Interesting take on the priv, though I do feel the author may have misjudged the audience by stating no-one cares about it being the latest version of Android. Given Blackberry's stated commitment to quick updates I would hope that it is kept up-to-date for a considerable time.
Though to be really interesting I would have hoped for water resistance and dust protection.
Security. Malware. Endless repeating notifications. Apps that demand access to everything for no reason (a good example here is Google Clock which is an alarm clock created by Google that claims it needs access to your wifi settings and contacts list - what the actual fuck?!?).
Apps that don't close. Apps that autorun. Opaque settings. Lag. Battery life. Is that enough for you?
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