Just when you might have thought BlackBerry was dead in the water. Last week, the Canadian-based company unveiled their newest device w/ the Passport. Sporting a unique form-factor + size, the Passport is their most powerful BlackBerry in existence w/ a quad-core Snapdragon 801 CPU + 3GB of RAM. We attended a media event this week and got a chance to demo it out. Enter our 1st impressions of it.
- Like any BlackBerry of any year, the Passport sports a solid build. BB made sure to maintain a high-level of quality in building this device. It has a nice metal frame and plastic, soft-touch finish to it to give it a solid heft to it. Definitely feels like it could take a beating - which is something many devices these can't do at all.
The Passport is surprisingly compelling at 1st glance.
- The design + display is in a class by itself - literally. There is no other device like this on the market. The 4.5inch IPS display w/ 1440 x 1440 resolution, 1:1 contrast ratio, and 453ppi. It is super-sharp and looks beautiful from the fews sites and screens we've navigated on it. Back to the design, it is a bit weird to use w/ one-hand as the display takes up 90% of the device. This will have to be utilized w/ 2-hands.
- The keyboard is as stellar as you'd expect from Blackberry. Just odd that the number/character row is now missing. They made sure to add sensors underneath the keyboard to offer mouse-like capabilities. For example: you can scroll through websites, flick to type or slide along the keys to move the cursor - all from the keyboard. Glad to see BB is still innovating.
- BlackBerry 10.3 OS brings you a few new tricks up their sleeve as well. Offering new icons, an improved Hub for all of your communications, new Camera UI, and more. Now a lot faster and takes full advantage of the new chipset.
Of course, more testing is required on the Passport to get a better idea of how well a new BlackBerry works in 2014.
Categories: Features
