BlackBerry is fighting a battle to remain relevant in the smartphone space, and it has two new products in the pipeline that it hopes will reverse its fortunes. While the company has shown off both the new Classic and the Passport, it’s the latter that has garnered the most attention.
Until now, we didn’t know much about the Passport other than the fact that it featured a wide QWERTY keyboard and an unusual 4.5” 1440×1440 display. For the BlackBerry fans out there that cling on to any new release from the Canadian company, CrackBerry has posted a user-written, pre-release review of the Passport.
On the “square” screen:
On the “square” screen:
The screen is one of such elegance, that it even made the most diehard iPhone user smile. It’s got one of the sharpest screens out there and the UI that felt cramped on the Q10 now is unleashed in a fashion that renders you hopelessly in love…
The screen is everything on the BlackBerry Passport. They finally figured it out. It’s the focus here and also takes over a large amount of the duties of the keyboard. At a whopping 1440×1440 pixels, the screen is pleasantly bright and gives everything more space.
Processors specs are unavailable at this point, but other hardware features were revealed:
This model has 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of on-board memory, though I did add a 64 GB SD card myself. Finally, there is an easily accessible nano SIM slot to allow for easy SIM switching without the battery interfering. With it having an internal battery which lasts forever, BlackBerry put the SD card slot and SIM slot on the top of the phone inside of a removable panel.
About that new keyboard:
So how does this work? It works in a fashion never witnessed before. The symbols, characters, numbers and everything else is on screen and intuitively changes depending on where you are. If you are on the compose panels contact list, you will get the numeric buttons on the screen and if on the body portion, the symbols and character can be invoked.
This was of course a prototype device and not every feature was functioning properly. It was also running an older version of BlackBerry’s flagship operating system (10.3.0.428), so performance and software features should be further fleshed out by the time it is officially released.
Is the Passport enough to get folks out of their Apple iPhones and Samsung Galaxies? Probably not. But it’s at least nice to see BlackBerry looking to differentiate itself in the market with the Passport.
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