Goodbye Research In Motion. Hello BlackBerry! (And BB10)

[s44]

It does seem like BlackBerry really did put a lot of thought into the design and ergonomics of the phone and OS though.

I dunno. On second look, the launcher looks pretty unwieldy -- last 8, unpinnable, spread over two pages? Yes, iOS survives with just a multitasking strip on the bottom, but if you're going to pop a whole-screen interface, you might as well use it.

"Bad remake of Meego" seems not entirely wrong.

 

[silverpig]

I dunno. On second look, the launcher looks pretty unwieldy -- last 8, unpinnable, spread over two pages? Yes, iOS survives with just a multitasking strip on the bottom, but if you're going to pop a whole-screen interface, you might as well use it.

"Bad remake of Meego" seems not entirely wrong.

Unpinnable for now. If people give them feedback about that, it's something they can enable in an OTA update without a major change.

 

[jalyst]

What you call 'vague' was clearly specified (within the relevant boundary), necessarily entailing that you did not read my post correctly.
Furthermore, my 'claims' are not 'claims' - they are 'the fact of the matter'. If you're not 'in the know' as to why Blackberry phones were a corporate choice (even though I outlined why previously) it's you who a) does not know the specifics, b) who sees vagueness where clarity is necessarily there, and c) perhaps this does not apply to you therefore you just have no idea, and try to pass off others' comments on the corporate viability of Blackberry phones as 'vagueness' - in no way have I been, or am I vague. Furthermore, you're being vague - point out in my posts where I have been vague, and I'll try to provide more detailed information. Until then, you're guilty of what you're accusing me of: you type 'you're vague' and contribute nothing by way of clear criticism.

Why are you asserting that I'm arguing with you about BB's corporate strengths? I'm not.
In my 1st response I asked you to elaborate on why it was worse than other offerings in a corporate sense, as the conclusion of your post indicated disappointment in that respect (it was somewhat open-ended, it also suggested disappointment in abilities outside that area).
Then your subsequent posts (except for this latest one) mainly focused on your disappointment for aspects "outside" Z10's (likely) corporate strengths.
So it's crystal clear for you, I'm referring to statements like this:
"In those environments, Blackberries have reigned supreme - and I was hoping that Blackberry would have brought out something with mass market appeal..."
That was a continuation of other vague statements about being disappointed, vague statements not (yet) qualified by any further detail/specifics.
I was correct in pointing them out, not sure what's so hard to understand about that...

Regarding to the current phone, the hope (mine) was to take previous generations' hardware customisability per corporate clients, and combine that

As I understand it, yes, that has been done, not entirely sure if the implementation is "exactly" the same YET.

with a latest hardware generation, feature rich phone, with mass market viability so as to provide further competition. It may still have that hardware customisability (none of my colleagues have said that their corporate structures are upgrading them to the BB10, yet) but regarding the features of the phone; I simply expected more. That is, perhaps, subjective.

Again, the problem with this entire paragraph is that you're not being specific about WHAT (outside "enterprise env." functionality) is so poor compared to other offerings.
Some of your prior posts have clearly spoken of your disappointment in it not being able to compete outside the corporate env, yet they're followed-up with little to no qualifications as-to-why. You really dont get that?
You're entitled to your opinion, but generally when someone has a opinion & they want to impress upon others how they came to it, they explain why.

 

[jalyst]

A per these posts....
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=34566185#post34566185
Anyone know if this is just a straight Cortex A9, or a hybrid design, ala Krait & Apple's Swift-core:
http://www.stericsson.com/products/L8580.jsp
Is it likely to be competitive with SoC's arriving on phones this year? (software aside)

Third & final time before I do some of my own research, anyone got a clue about this? TY.

 

[TheStu]

Unpinnable for now. If people give them feedback about that, it's something they can enable in an OTA update without a major change.

Right but it seems that the multi-tasking system is tied into the home screen. So the 8 apps that you see on your home screen are also the 8 apps that the phone is keeping in memory. Whereas if you could pin them, so that say... you're calendar was always there in that icon/live tile/widget/minimized app state, then now you are down to 7 apps that you can cycle through in memory.

 

[Makaveli]

I think you should re-read my post. The reason why Blackberries are used in certain corporate environments is because of their ability to be reconstructed by IT departments to block wifi/3g at the hardware level, or to tailor the phones to specified confidential uses. In those environments, Blackberries have reigned supreme - and I was hoping that Blackberry would have brought out something with mass market appeal, in addition to the above peculiarities to their phones that I described. I deliberately under-described the features, though, so as not to indicate my profession. Ask friends of yours with corporate phones and check.

You are 100% correct.

I do IT support as some of my duties for a lawfirm, we were only Blackberries and BES but then demand came for the Iphone. So now we had to setup Mobile Iron to allow the iphones to connect Andriod phones still not allowed.

Having a Iphone on mobile iron is not even close to the functionality of a Blackberry on BES. The first few lawyers that switched when back to a blackberry in the matter of two weeks once they saw how much the on screen keyboard was slowing them down when typing.

Next issue with the Iphones Appointments and meeting request!

These are mostly ISO6 issues.

If you created a meeting and sent it out the first person to accept the meeting would now becoming the meeting Creator WTF?

Then sometimes the first person to accept the meeting would cause it to delete the whole request even though you never sent it another WTF.

And just this week we have a lawyer who is going to europe and wanted to know if he could lock down his email account to only allow emails from one client to go through and having the rest of this inbox blocked to save on data charges! And guess what not possible on a Iphone , on a Blackberry on BES possible!

Those are just a few examples that but only someone that is using these phones in a corporate environment would be exposed to.

I reserved a Z10 with Rogers this week and hoping to get it by next week or two so I can start playing with it.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

I may have missed it but will blackberry finally have OTA updates to the operating system like the other phones do??!

 

[jalyst]

You are 100% correct...

This bit of his post was 100% correct;

"The reason why Blackberries are used in certain corporate environments is because of their ability to be reconstructed by IT departments to block wifi/3g at the hardware level, or to tailor the phones to specified confidential uses. In those environments, Blackberries have reigned supreme -"

The rest remains vague/unqualified e.g:
"...and I was hoping that Blackberry would have brought out something with mass market appeal..."
Same for vague assertions in other posts, saying something conclusive, but not really saying why.

I may have missed it but will blackberry finally have OTA updates to the operating system like the other phones do??!

Yup, there is...

 

[Aristotelian]

The rest remains vague/unqualified e.g:
"...and I was hoping that Blackberry would have brought out something with mass market appeal..."
Same for vague assertions in other posts, saying something conclusive, but not really saying why.

Thank you for finally focusing your vague and unfocused criticism onto something that I can respond to. Make a list of the 'vague assertions' and I'll respond to them; parroting 'vague assertion' over and over again isn't a criticism if you cannot back it up, as that is also mere assertion.

I take it that you are confused by what I meant with 'mass market appeal' - for the 'mass market' (outside of corporate environments), adding better predictive (learning) typing functionality is nice, but how about addressing any number of frequent 'mass market' complaints? I'll just take one: battery life. If they had managed truly fantastic battery life there I think that their appeal would have spread significantly outside "people in the know" re: BB's potential. That's without getting into more minor usability issues (have you seen the e-mail management? Check, back to inbox, check, back to inbox? I hope that's updated away later).

 

[jalyst]

Thank you for finally focusing your vague and unfocused criticism onto something that I can respond to.

LOL, that's a good one....

Make a list of the 'vague assertions' and I'll respond to them; parroting 'vague assertion' over and over again isn't a criticism if you cannot back it up, as that is also mere assertion.

I'm amazed I actually have to do this, but, here we go;

I'm, somehow, fundamentally disappointed with this release.
I was hoping that this release would generate some significant competition for the other major market leaders by offering 'something different'.
Perhaps it still retains elements that make it the handset of choice for corporate environments but, I'm not seeing them at the moment.

and I was hoping that Blackberry would have brought out something with mass market appeal,

and combine that with a latest hardware generation, feature rich phone, with mass market viability so as to provide further competition.
but regarding the features of the phone; I simply expected more. That is, perhaps, subjective.

That's pretty-much the entire content of your previous posts, which outline how/why you've come to the conclusion that the Z10 isn't satisfactory.

but how about addressing any number of frequent 'mass market' complaints? I'll just take one: battery life. If they had managed truly fantastic battery life there I think that their appeal would have spread significantly outside "people in the know" re: BB's potential. That's without getting into more minor usability issues (have you seen the e-mail management? Check, back to inbox, check, back to inbox? I hope that's updated away later).

Ah now we're getting somewhere, this is good, this is all I was asking the whole time, you're actually listing a few things here.
I don't have any rebuttals to your current points of criticism, perhaps others do or will soon...
I generally don't like to offer any criticism or counters until I've had the device in my hand for a while, & truly come to terms with it's ins/outs.
I've found over the yrs that net content alone (even dozens of sources) is a very poor substitute for "using" (& on-selling if it's not my cup of tea).

You see unlike you (it seems), my only opinion about this device is that I don't yet have an opinion.
So, when someone comes along with what seems to be a fairly well-formed opinion...
It's always interesting to see them list lotsa reasons why it's not up-to-scratch in their assessment compared to competitors.
Keep going, you're making good progress now, still far from a thorough nitpick, but it's a good start.

Hopefully NOW you're finally getting me & not seeing my line-of-questioning/responses as something personal?
Because, that has REALLY not been my intent the whole time... HUGS?

*Addendum*
Ofc, I may have misinterpreted the aforementioned statements by you as an assertion that you've already formed a opinion on the Z10.
If that's the case, then I do apologise for jumping to that conclusion. Either way, I'm shutting-up now, as this thread has been derailed enough

 

[Aristotelian]

snip

I think that you and I have been talking past each other in a way, given your last response. In order for me to form my 'disappointed position' I don't need to have the kind of hands-on experience that you seem to require before you arrive at a conclusion of a product. So our point of departure is as simple as that, I think.

Hopefully Anandtech will put up a very thorough review at some point so that even the widely convergent criticisms available on the net can be more rigorously tested. If you get your hands on one I'd be interested to see what you have to say about the battery life (for a start).

 

[LC99]

It looks like the Z10 has the best mobile browser on the planet. Leading HTML5 scores and Ringmark tests, and best Browsermark score, which is more of a real life benchmark than synthetic javascript engine tests which BB does not win. And it runs Flash for those sites that still need it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5XPAvnd8y6c

 

[Eug]

BlackBerry Z10 Superbowl ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPbhzmIq9uU

 

[lopri]

That ad is a little too generic and unimaginative, imo. 'You can be/do whatever you want' may have been chic in 2005 but in 2013 you need to be more edgy and specific. At least it's not cringe-inducing like Surface RT ad.

 

[dlock13]

That ad is a little too generic and unimaginative, imo. 'You can be/do whatever you want' may have been chic in 2005 but in 2013 you need to be more edgy and specific. At least it's not cringe-inducing like Surface RT ad.

The thing is, that Surface ad was very... 'hip.' I thought it was stupid because it didn't actually introduce the Surface AT ALL like it should have been, but the people I've heard mention that commercial thought it was so cool because of all the dancing and stuff so that might be what MS was trying to do.

 

[lopri]

I guess it was too hip for me to take? I thought it was like a bad-taste parody of "Life at the Foxconn conveyor belt."

For anyone who missed it -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB5txqIl8jQ

Anyway, the Z10 ad won't make me turn the channel but for such an expensive ad its impact seems weak. To me, that is.

 

[Throckmorton]

Why doesn't any Android phone maker build one with the same form factor as a blackberry--- with a QWERTY keyboard you can use with one hand AND a big screen?

 

[Red Storm]

Why doesn't any Android phone maker build one with the same form factor as a blackberry--- with a QWERTY keyboard you can use with one hand AND a big screen?

Swipe style typing let's you do just that.

 

[zerocool84]

Why doesn't any Android phone maker build one with the same form factor as a blackberry--- with a QWERTY keyboard you can use with one hand AND a big screen?

Because they never sold well when they made them. The market has spoken.

 

[Deeko]

Because they never sold well when they made them. The market has spoken.

They also never really focused on it, so it wasn't a fair comparison. The Droid Pro was the last Blackberry-style Android that I can remember and it just wasn't a very good device compared to the competition. Landscape sliders user to do quite well for Android - look at the original Droid, which put Android on the map - but how long has it been since one of those had the spotlight? The Epic 4G? Sure, a high end phone...on Sprint. The Droid line itself was relegated to the mid-range.

I think if they made a high end phone with a keyboard - maybe a portrait slider like the Venue Pro or Torch - it could do quite well, if it were executed and marketed properly.

 

[dlock13]

So... anyone see this yet? Looks like there is a chance BB might be a huge hit in its homeland. Can't say I'm honestly surprised about that. However, I just hope the users spend time with it instead of giving it a week and going back to Android or iOS. Also, they're going to want the apps they've been using so BB needs to get devs on that immediately if they want to keep user interest up.

 

[silverpig]

So... anyone see this yet? Looks like there is a chance BB might be a huge hit in its homeland. Can't say I'm honestly surprised about that. However, I just hope the users spend time with it instead of giving it a week and going back to Android or iOS. Also, they're going to want the apps they've been using so BB needs to get devs on that immediately if they want to keep user interest up.

Yep. I had heard about this from Rogers early last week somehow.

I find it funny because all of the tech blogs have been pretty much the same with their opinions: "BB10 is good, but it won't make anyone switch".

There are obviously people who are going to switch. I have an iPhone 4 and I'm going to switch. I wonder what will happen if the tech blogs get it so incredibly wrong and BB10 turns out to be a big hit.

 

[Eug]

As I discussed earlier, I wonder if BB's removal of the requirement for special types BB-oriented data accounts has had a real world impact to adoption.

However, traditionally Canada has been a very BB-friendly place, which is not surprising since it's a Canadian company. I dunno, but maybe that's why I'm personally more optimistic about BB than I am about Windows Phone, but then again, Windows Phone has always had poor uptake, whereas in the past BB was huge.

And yeah, I never understand those blogs and their declarations about how since Android and iOS exist, nobody is going anywhere else.

 

[dlock13]

Yep. I had heard about this from Rogers early last week somehow.

I find it funny because all of the tech blogs have been pretty much the same with their opinions: "BB10 is good, but it won't make anyone switch".

There are obviously people who are going to switch. I have an iPhone 4 and I'm going to switch. I wonder what will happen if the tech blogs get it so incredibly wrong and BB10 turns out to be a big hit.

As I discussed earlier, I wonder if BB's removal of the requirement for special types BB-oriented data accounts has had a real world impact to adoption.

However, traditionally Canada has been a very BB-friendly place, which is not surprising since it's a Canadian company. I dunno, but maybe that's why I'm personally more optimistic about BB than I am about Windows Phone, but then again, Windows Phone has always had poor uptake, whereas in the past BB was huge.

And yeah, I never understand those blogs and their declarations about how since Android and iOS exist, nobody is going anywhere else.

I'm with both of you on this. I don't understand why blogs are saying it's going to be a fail. It's clearly an extremely smooth OS that caters to a large amount of people. Devotees get their keyboard, and those yearning for a good touchscreen device from BB get the Z10.

Also, I'm with you on that Eug. I believe BB will become the 3rd OS knocking WP8 down to 4th just because of BB's already established enterprise dominance. I've heard numerous stories how much easier BES is to handle than... the other 3 OSes.

Canada alone will probably boost BB to the 3rd spot.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I'm entrenched in Android and I'm still considering trying out Blackberry if it's as slick as it looks. Will wait for some long-term usage reports though.