I've been using my Blackberry Q10 for about 2 months and my previous experience with a Blackberry/RIM smartphone was my Blackberry Bold 9700. In fact, the Blackberry Q10 was meant as an upgrade to my aging Blackberry Bold 9700. Because my previous experience with a Blackberry was with a Bold 9700 running OS 6, I've never used OS 7 before so some of my "likes" in this blog entry might actually not be a new thing for Blackberry phones.
Before I go ahead with this, as stated in one of my previous blog entries, I just wanted to state that I'm not a Blackberry fanboy nor am I a Blackberry hater. As you can see from some of my other reviews on cellphones, I have/use many different phones and find things that I like about each of them and things that I don't like about each of them.
As of the date that I'm writing this blog entry, the current software release available for the Q10 is 10.1.0.273 (OS Version is listed as being 10.1.0.1720) and I have all the latest default programs installed on it.
The first thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that I find the browsing experience to be very good. Coming from a Blackberry Bold 9700 (running OS 6), I was very used to the browser crashing every few webpages and how the Blackberry browser interpreted a webpage in a very lackluster format. On the Blackberry Q10, in the roughly 2 months that I've been using it, I have yet to have the browser abruptly crash on me. The Blackberry Q10 browser's rendition of webpages is also comparable to what I would get in my computer (although on a very small screen).
The second thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that it (like my older Blackberry Bold 9700) uses a micro-USB port for charging and for USB synchronizing. Now, unlike with my older Blackberry Bold 9700, the Blackberry Q10 seems to be less fussy when it comes to the micro-USB plug when I am trying to charge it. On my Blackberry Bold 9700, depending on where the micro-USB was plugged into, I would sometimes receive a message indicating that charging was not possible. On my Blackberry Q10 using the same micro-USB cable as well as the adapter that it was plugged into, I would not receive a message about charging not being possible (and my Blackberry Q10 would charge).
The third thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that it is LTE capable. Since there are different LTE bands/frequencies, you have to make sure that the Blackberry Q10 that you purchase is compatible with your carrier's LTE network. For example, the Blackberry Q10 (model SCN100-3) has been optimized for the Rogers Wireless Network in Canada.
The fourth thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that using the physical keyboard on the Q10 is even easier than on my Blackberry Bold 9700 in that when typing text, the Q10 will show some text suggestions that you can easily use by selecting the text on the touch screen. It makes typing an e-mail or a text message a lot easier although sometimes I still find myself typing the entire word as opposed to just picking the word from the list of suggestions. This is similar to the list of suggestions while typing on an Android phone but with a physical keyboard, I just find it easier to type and the text suggestions makes it even easier/better.
The fifth thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that the Contacts allow for linking multiple sources so that a contact/person will only appear once in the Contacts addressbook. If you don't want something to appear in the Contacts addressbook altogether, all you have to do while in Contacts is on the touchscreen, swipe downwards and select Settings and then toggle off the item/database that you don't want. For example, because in Twitter, I follow companies, I don't want the names of companies to show up as a contact within my Contacts addressbook.
The sixth thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that I find the swiping action to be very intuitive to navigate between the different screens as well as to go back into the Blackberry Hub screen.
The seventh thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that the camera is auto focusing. With my older Blackberry Bold 9700, the camera was also auto focusing but when Blackberry/RIM released the Blackberry Bold 9900, the opted to do away with the auto focusing camera.
The eighth thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that it no longer requires a Blackberry specific data plan in order to get e-mail and web browsing to work properly. I was using my Blackberry Q10 SIM-less for approximately 4 days while I waited to receive my microSIM cutter from Ebay and my Blackberry Q10 worked very well SIM-less. While SIM-less, the Blackberry Q10 seemed to get its time via NTP or by connecting to an NTP server. When I was connected to a wireless access point, every internet capable application worked without any issues (BBM, browser, e-mail, etc.). The reason that I like that the Blackberry Q10 no longer requires a SIM card with a Blackberry specific data plan (BIS/BES) for it to access data/e-mail properly is because when I travel, I find it hard to get a Blackberry compatible data plan on a prepaid plan.
The ninth thing that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that it has a port for a micro-HDMI cable so that you can plug your Blackberry Q10 into your television set for whatever reason (watch videos/pictures, or when doing a presentation). On some other phones which are capable of displaying to an HD television or monitor, a special type of cable, dongle, or docking station is required. For the Blackberry Q10, a standard micro-HDMI cable is all that is required to project/display to an HD television (provided that the HD television has an HDMI port)
Some of the other things that I like about the Blackberry Q10 is that it accepts a microSD card for storing pictures, music, videos, and files. Another thing that I like is that it has a user removable/replaceable battery. Based on my usage, the battery life is very good. I also find the amount of internal memory on the Q10 to be good when compared to my older Blackberry Bold 9700 running OS 6 because although I have not gone crazy by installing a lot of programs/applications on my Q10, my Q10 has not complained about memory issues yet (unlike my Bold 9700 which often complained about memory issues and required a reboot each day). My Blackberry Q10 has not required me to reboot the device in the 2 months that I've been using it (except when I've done a software/firmware update). When rebooting my Blackberry Q10, I find that it boots up a lot faster than the time that it took for my Blackberry Bold 9700 to boot up. I also like that it is very easy to do a screen capture on the Blackberry Q10. Basically, to do this, all you have to do is go to the screen you want to capture and then press the volume up and volume down keys as the same time.
If you have any comments/questions regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section below. Please note that the comments are moderated and any comment containing a URL link (whether embedded or not) will automatically be flagged as spam and will not be posted.
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