BlackBerry Z10 Pro Reviews

The design and build quality of the Z10 just makes it seem like a cheap plastic iPhone to us. Hardware is reasonable with the screen being the stand out feature and the BlackBerry 10 software makes this the most attractive BlackBerry smartphone to date. However, given the price, the iPhone or a decent Android handset is still a preferable option.

A likeable smartphone that offers something very different to the competition: an encouraging return to form for BlackBerry

BlackBerry 10 is a huge step forward over the versions that came before it, that much is clear. It’s easier to use, looks better, is more consistent and understandable for new users, and sensibly implements touchscreen gestures rather than a spray of buttons under the display. BlackBerry Hub and its attempts to collate every notification and update may not be to everybody’s taste, but if your social life is spread across your phone, there’s a good argument for pulling everything together in one, easily-monitored place. If you’re a BlackBerry fan, then the Z10 (and, with its promise of a physical keyboard, the upcoming Q10) is undeniably a big step up from whatever you’re currently using. Sadly BlackBerry fans are now in short supply, in the grand scheme of the mobile market, and selling a shrinking group new phones does little to help the Canadian company break out of its doldrums. Thorsten Heins & Co. have done an admirable job dragging BlackBerry out of its bad old habits, but BlackBerry 10 still has a long way to go before it’s anything more than a reasonable alternative to Windows Phone in the smartphone little leagues.

Early impressions of the Z10 show that this is an excellent phone and definitely one that I would take over the competition. BlackBerry had to create something phenomenal to bounce back, and that's exactly what they did with the Z10. However, there's still room for improvement. Here are a few things that I wish the Z10 had. - Contactless charging or at least plug-less charging like the Bold 9900. This should be standard on all phones. - Netflix (I know, I know, I already talked about that). - Sugarsync, my cloud storage service of choice. I do not want to switch to Dropbox, so hopefully we'll see the app soon.

People have clamored for RIM to produce a smartphone worthy of comparison to the iPhone and the Android elite, and the company has mostly been able to meet that criteria. However, there are still some areas of concern with BlackBerry 10, so the BlackBerry Z 10 suffers as a result. There are enough inconsistencies of BB10 navigation and app choices to make it difficult to choose the Z10 over other leading platforms, and the disappointing camera doesn't help provide additional convincing. The saving grace of the Z10 is that even though the first edition of BB10 has some issues to address, the software debuts on hardware that is a joy to hold. The Z10 has a large screen without an obscenely large body, and it's thin profile and comfortable materials make this one of my favorite smartphones to carry. It also does enough things well - like communication and the browser - to make this a sensible purchase for business-minded individuals and BlackBerry loyalists. Others will see the Z10 as just another smartphone that doesn't quite do what they've already managed to do on their existing device. There's nothing about this that might make others abandon their smartphones, so BlackBerry can't yet convince most consumers that the Z10 makes more sense than more popular and mature options. The BlackBerry Z10 is a hero device, but it's no savior.

Oh BlackBerry! We had some serious high hopes with this smartphone, well, more with the new platform of course. In the US, it isn’t going to arrive until March, where it’ll be sporting that golden price of $200 with a 2-year contract. First impressions are key, right? Well, we can’t say that the BlackBerry 10 is a darling of a gem with its design, which is a shame to tell you the truth, since solid industrial designs can really be the first line of defense to garner some attention. Instead, the BlackBerry Z10 has a stale appearance that’s already overshadows by many stylish smartphones. Quite frankly, if this were walking down on the same fashion runway as some other notable handsets, it would quickly be forgotten afterwards due to its bland and boring design.

The Z10 is a decent smartphone offering up a strong range of features and a fancy new operating system which may catch the eye of the technologically adventurous. It does pretty much everything we'd expect from a high-end device and there are no major flaws to go running to the presses about. That said the Z10 also lacks any killer selling points. It's hard to find reasons why we'd recommend this over say the Samsung Galaxy S3, iPhone 5, Sony Xperia Z or Nokia Lumia 920 - all of which are around the same price as the Z10. The unproven operating system and severe lack of headlining applications will turn a lot of consumers off at point of sale and it's the image of the BlacBerry brand as a whole which needs to be worked on fast if it stands a chance of winning back the hearts of the general public. The BlackBerry Z10 – it's got the weight of a whole company on its plastic shoulders. It's holding up, but we're not sure for how long.

There are two questions at hand. The first is: how well did RIM do with the Z10? The second is, should I buy it? From where I sit, RIM did a good job with the Z10. For a company with a short, terrible track record with touch-screen devices (see the Storm and Storm 2, prior to the acceptable Torch 9850,) the Z10 looks good, has desirable specs, and gets the basics right. But this time around, the Z10 represents more than just itself. With its first BlackBerry 10 device, RIM stands at a crossroads, bearing the weight of its unevenly-provisioned OS. On the one hand, BlackBerry 10 is a brand-spankin'-new mobile platform that can only grow and mature. On the other, RIM has had plenty of maturation time, drawing on a legacy of secure e-mail and messaging that predates the iPhone takeover. BlackBerry 10 wasn't some rush job; RIM all but suspended production for years to work on the hardware and software to make the Z10. For a future that hinges on this first device, shouldn't there be fewer missteps?