BlackBerry Q10
£580 (SIM-free) 5/5
Ever since I laid my last BlackBerry to rest and ‘upgraded’ to touchscreen phones, my typing has slowed to a crawl.
As a result, my business correspondence is now mostly in the form of emails saying, ‘Great thanks.’
Invitations? ‘Great thanks.’
Offers of work? ‘Great thanks.’
Final demands for tax bills? ‘Great thanks.’
THE KEYBOARD: BlackBerry’s app store isn’t quite as big as Apple’s or Google’s, but let’s face it: most apps are terrible anyway. Here, you get the key ones such as Kindle, Facebook and Flickr, albeit with niggling omissions such as Spotify
It works so well I’ve begun to think I could outsource myself to an auto-reply.
In the years since I ditched BlackBerry, I’ve also received dozens of press releases – to which I doubtless replied, ‘Great thanks’ – saying that such-and-such new phone would make typing on a touchscreen just as fast as on a real qwerty keyboard.
All utter lies. With the new BlackBerry Q10, the kings of keyboard phones have calmly strolled back in and reclaimed their crown. My typing was cured instantly.
The new, ‘proper’ BlackBerry is by far the fastest, best typing machine you can fit in a pocket – now with modern luxuries such as apps and a browser that actually works, both of which were notably absent on the Golden Age BlackBerrys I still grow misty-eyed about.
The keyboard is actually better than the one on former flagship the 9900 – there’s no trackpad, so more room for buttons – and it’s searingly fast.
You can pretty much fly free from your desktop and become one of those office nomads who just hovers around with a notepad looking purposeful.
THE TOUCHSCREEN: It’s tiny, especially compared to those on this year’s monstrous phones – next to an HTC One, this feels like a tea towel next to a duvet. But it works perfectly well for web browsing, and even games such as Angry Birds
THE WATERFALL INBOX: Not just email but LinkedIn, Facebook updates, texts and tweets are instantly accessible
Meanwhile, the new, iPhone-esque BB10 operating system (whose unveiling saw Alicia Keys trotted out to reassure people that, hey, BlackBerry is down with the kids, daddio) actually shines here.
BlackBerry doesn’t get enough credit for how powerful a communication tool its new, all-inone inbox is – bringing together LinkedIn messages, Facebook, tweets, texts and email in one terrifying waterfall of information.
Neither iPhone nor Android can match it – and here, it’s accelerated to machine-gun pace.
There are even keyboard shortcuts – so if you type ‘tw’ then a space, you start tweeting.
If you type ‘fb’ you post on Facebook. This isn’t a firm playing catch-up.
The Q10 won’t be for everyone, of course. The app store’s still a little threadbare – and missing big names such as Spotify, which will break the hearts of a lot of tech fans (including, I must admit, me).
Serious tech fiends also might not pick this feisty little communicator over the super-powered chips and ice-rink-sized screens on new, giant Androids like Samsung’s five-inch S4.
Apple fans will, as ever, stroke the machinedmetal backs of their tiny phones and go back to reading the latest iPhone 6 rumours from ‘highly placed sources in Apple’s factory supply chain’.
But for anyone who craves that strange, old-world luxury of spelling emails properly, this is a very welcome return for ‘proper’ BlackBerries.
I just hope that after the brand’s ‘wilderness years’, the mere sight of a BlackBerry will still conjure that air of importance – making people around you think you must be checking important financial results, or awaiting a conference call.
The good: The fastest pocket-sized typing machine
The bad: Fewer apps than the iPhone or Android
The verdict: This turbocharged communicating device marks a blazing return to form for BlackBerry
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2318900/BlackBerry-Q10-Blackberry-boldly-resurrects-physical-keyboard-super-fast-Q10-brilliant-return-form.html#ixzz2SVmVhg7s
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