My 9780 is pushing 4 years old. The GPS doesn't work at all. WiFi is very poor (1 bar when standing 10 feet from the router in an empty room). It constantly drops calls and the signal just seems to randomly fluctuate between SOS, gprs, EDGE and 3G. The speaker for the phone is barely audible so I mostly use the speakerphone when talking to people. However, the physical keyboard is just so much nicer to use for text and e-mail that I have waited nearly a year and a half for the Q10.
Words can't convey how disappointed I am with the introduction of the Q10. I've been to the T-Mobile store 4 or 5 times to handle it and while the device is still the best choice for me, it still has some serious drawbacks, not the least of which is the price. How is it that the only people on planet earth that couldn't figure out that it's not a $600 phone are the people at Blackberry. And they still can't figure it out. It's been out 3 months, inventory is backing up at the warehouse, suppliers are returning handsets and for some reason they are clinging to the $600 price point that late adopters are certainly not going to pay. Every time I go to T-Mobile they have stories about customer after customer that chased down the elusive Blackberry for a year or more like I did and then said f#&@ it when they saw how proud Blackberry was. Does Blackberry think there are 2 million loyal customers that have been on vacation for 3 months on an island without cell service that are suddenly gonna jump off the plane and run to the nearest cell shop and trade in their old BB?
Here's what Blackberry HAD over everything else:
#1- The keyboard
Let's not even start with the redesigned keyboard. Why in the hell did they abandon the curved keyboard? If you are really trying to win back/retain your loyal BB fan base, why do you go and change the configuration of the only substantial, physical property that distinguishes your phone from all the other offerings? Bigger buttons do not make it easier to type when the buttons are not in the right place. Does the keyboard feel better than anything else out there? Absolutely. Is it better than my 9700 or 9780? Nope, especially not for $600.
#2- Battery life that was so much better than other smartphones that it didn't even seem fair.
What happened to 3 or 4 days of standby time and 2 days of hard use without recharging? Great. Now it's like an efficient Android with half the hardware specs.
#3- Physical button layout.
My 97xx sits in my hand and my index finger sits right across the upper left hand corner of the top. Guess what this is. The lock/unlock. Done with a call? Just press down where your index finger is already resting and the phone is locked. Thanks for dumping the camera button, too. Other BB phones are less than 3 seconds from button push to photograph. Thanks for complicating the process of taking photos with your ingenious touch screen. Oh, you've added an HDMI port in place of a convenience key. Thank you, I can't tell you often I have walked by an HD TV and thought to myself, "Self, I wish I could use my cell phone like a BR player except without the ability to play Blu-Ray discs." Stupid. This should have been an afterthought if the space was there. Reserved for the true techno geek that would have gravitated to the Z10, anyway.
Is it a nice phone? Absolutely. Is BB10 a big step forward? Definitely. I would pay for the advances and accept some of the setbacks, but this is a $400 phone, Max. Screw your subsidized pricing, Blackberry. When I can go in and just buy one at that price with cash or my credit card, let me know. I sure hope it happens in the next week or two cuz the more I get comfortable with Swype on my tablet PC, the more attractive that Nexus 4 looks at 1/3 the price.
Talk about a company that has no grasp on reality. Blackberry is like that frat boy that just never figured out there's life after college and eventually ends up just living in his Mom's basement. He can still be fun to hang out with, but they just can't seem to get over themselves and just keep over estimating their own value thinking their loyal fans will just keep lining up.
Blackberry is Stiffler.
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