A couple weeks ago I let you all know that I decided to make the BlackBerry Q10 my main device and use it more than my BlackBerry Z10. Well now that I have had the Q10 for some time and had a chance to really try things out on it I thought I would give you my thoughts and opinions on the top five things that I really like, as well as the five things the I hope BlackBerry will work on in future OS updates.
First off let me open by saying that when I hold the BlackBerry Q10 in my hand it just feels very solid. I know on my Z10 I was always worried about dropping or damaging it somehow and thats why I always had it protected with a Brando Workshop case, but on the Q10 I have yet to put a case on it. I’m sure I will over time but the way the device feels naked I feel more confident that if I did drop it the Q10 would be okay.
Here are five things that I truly like on my BlackBerry Q10.
Keyboard
Like I mentioned in my last review of the Q10, this is the one area that will always make me lean towards the Q10 (or future BlackBerry devices with a physical keyboard) over any type of touch screen device. I was very surprised at how well I was able to type on the Z10 but I missed the accuracy and speed that I had on my Bold 9930. The Q10 keyboard is great and in my opinion the best one that BlackBerry has right now. So if you are still waiting to grab your new BlackBerry 10 device and you aren’t sure if you should go the keyboard or all touch screen model then I say if you have become use to the BlackBerry keyboards of old then stay with the Q10.
Screen
The Q10 has a 3.1 inch Super AMOLED touchscreen and offers a resolution of 720×720 which is much bigger than what I was use to on my Bold 9930 that has a 2.8 inch TFT screen with a 640×480 resolution. The Q10 display is very sharp in detail and colors and the The Super AMOLED display is much more energy efficient which will help with the battery life and anything that can help in that department is always welcome. The screen is also great in the sun which is a huge plus. I have a family member that has an Android device and when she’s in the sun it is very hard to see her display but on the Q10 there is no such issue.
The Hub
Now this is one area where some of you probably won’t agree with me but I love the idea of having all my messages in one central place, to me it just makes things so much more convenient. I no longer have to go from folder to folder to read my e-mails, texts, missed calls, or any of my social media messages. I truly love the fact that at anytime and in any app I can peek in to see who the message is from and then I can decide from there what I want to do with the message. I know there are many of you that are hoping that BlackBerry will add a dedicated e-mail icon but for me it’s so easy to just go to the Hub and send all my messages from there. In fact the text message icon that we have now has been moved to my “junk” folder because I don’t use it and I’m sure if they ever add the e-mail icons they will also be moved into the junk folder.
Battery Life
To me the battery life is one of the most important things I look at when I’m deciding on which device I want as my daily driver and the Q10 battery life has been far greater than ANY BlackBerry I have ever owned. It has a 2100 mAh Li-Ion battery which in itself is bigger than any of my older devices. Like I have said many times here on BlackBerry Empire the only thing that really matters to most of us is, what does the battery do in real world use? Well I am a very heavy user on all my BlackBerry’s and I normally had to start looking for a place to plug my older legacy devices in around lunch time but with the Q10 I take it of the charger in the morning around 7 and whenever I decide to go to bed at night I have always had some battery left over. The Q10 is getting such great battery life that I haven’t even attempted to load any of the leaked OS’s on it and that’s saying a lot as I’m one of those guys that as soon as a leak hits I’m normally loading it up. I just don’t want to risk losing any of the battery life that I have now.
Browser
The browser works great on the Q10 and to me it is lightning fast loading all the different websites that I visit through out the day. I have also become a big user of the Reader mode within the browser because it resizes pages, removes all the ad banners and fancy formatting to provide you a clutter free and easy to read page of text. The Q10’s keyboard also comes into play in the browser with short cuts available to enhance the browser experience. You can hit “L” to reload a page, “R” to enter reading mode, “S” to open up the “find on page” function, “K” will send you into your bookmarks, and “H” will take you to your browsing history. Another great feature of the Q10 browser is that it supports Flash for any of you that may want it.
Here are the five things I hope BlackBerry will correct soon.
Contacts App
This has to be the biggest issue that I have been faced with and I hope BlackBerry has plans to fix the bugs within the contacts app fast because it is driving me crazy. For me it seems that if I have my contacts linked to their Twitter, BBM, or Facebook profiles then I have way to many issues. When they are linked a couple of the issues I’m faced with is that not all of the contacts app will show in the phone contact list, some of the contacts I know have an image assigned to them will no longer show the image, I even get contacts that somehow magically link themselfs to other folks. The good news is that if I just leave them all unlinked then things are okay for the most part.
Apps
Now for me personally I have no issues with missing apps but I included this on my list only because I know many of you are and even though I don’t use the app, I agree they need to be on the platform. Of course I’m talking about Instagram, Netflix, or any of the other big named apps. I also know many of you will say that most of them can be sideloaded and that’s fine for us that like to tinker with our device but the average person don’t know how to sideload and honestly they shouldn’t have to learn. I do know and understand that BlackBerry are not the ones making these apps but they need to figure a way to get the developers on board and make the app for the BlackBerry 10 platform.
Notifications
On the BlackBerry Legacy devices we were able to set up custom individual notifications for our text message contacts but on the BlackBerry Q10 that is not possible yet. I have also noticed that we can only use the five profiles (Normal, Phone Calls Only, Vibrate Only, Silent, and All Alerts Off) that BlackBerry has decided to bake into the OS. In the past we could setup our own custom profile which came in very handy for certain times where you wanted some messages to come through but not others.
Speed Dials
Please bring these back. I’m referring to the ability to just hold say the “M” key and it will dial my mom or whoever I have it setup to call. This was one feature I used a lot when calling the people I call the most. I have seen where we can setup our favorites in the contacts app but it was nice and easy to just long press the appropriate key to do the same thing.
How the new OS’s are released
This is another MAJOR area where I hope BlackBerry is listening and it’s not just for the Q10 but for all BlackBerry devices. It’s always great to hear and see that BlackBerry has released an OS update that not only takes care of bugs but also adds features to our devices but then we are held hostage by our carriers which is totally lame. Lets take the latest OS 10.1 update for the Z10 for example. We have all heard of many devices rebooting on their own and it seems BlackBerry has fixed the issue with an update but unfortunately a couple of the USA carriers are dragging their feet in releasing the update. Now as before I do know that it’s not BlackBerry’s fault but the bottom line is when these updates aren’t released it just makes BlackBerry look bad. Somehow, someway BlackBerry needs to push all the carriers to get these updates out in a much more timely fashion.
Let me remind you that these are just my thoughts and opinions as I’m sure you may not agree with all of them. One thing I do know is that the BlackBerry 10 platform is definitely great and something that I hope continues on the path that it seems to be heading. I love my BlackBerry Q10 and I have and will continue to recommend it to all my family and friends. As of right now this by far is the best BlackBerry device that’s out there. If you are still on the fence about the Q10 you can check out Michael’s very in-depth review or just go to the offical BlackBerry Q10 website for all the info you may need. Also make sure to hit up the comments below and let us all know, what are your favorite features or dislikes about the BlackBerry Q10?