The decline of the original smartphone-makers, BlackBerry, to being the tech underdog over the last few years had been quite disheartening for loyalists. Now, they’re back on track with not just one but two smartphones, ready to take on the biggies in the field.
Bigger display
Let’s see how they fare against one of their most popular competitors, with a cult following, the Apple iPhone 5. The BlackBerry Z10 which will be the first of the two smartphone to see the light of day is a direct competitor with its full-touch screen. The display is slightly bigger than the one of the iPhone 5 and hence you get more room to play around with apps on the Z10.
If you get down to the details, the sharpness of display on the BB Z10 also trumps the one on the iPhone 5 when it comes to pixels per inch (ppi). The BB Z10 has about 355 ppi as compared to 326 ppi in the iPhone 5.
BlackBerry Messenger fans will have more reason to stay hooked on to the service with the introduction of the BBM Video Chat. This is a direct counterpart to the popular FaceTime feature on Apple iPhones.
Both smarphones are neck and neck when it comes to the camera’s megapixel count but we are yet to see how well the lens on the Z10 captures images. The one on the iPhone 5 is excellent. One interesting feature that the snapper on the Z10 has though is ‘Time Shift’.
Basically, the camera captures frames a few seconds before and after you press the shutter button thereby lessening the chances of you missing the magic moment. The most interesting bit? If there are three people in a frame, you can adjust their faces independently in the Time Shift mode for your final image.
The trademark BlackBerry keypad will be missing on the Z10. So, those who have been fans of the addictive keypad can wait till the BlackBerry Q 10 is released. However, the virtual one on the Z10 comes with a slightly advance word prediction tweak.
Every time you type a letter, it predicts not just the word you’re typing in but the next. According to the company, a heat-mapping tech also learns from your typing patterns to see where exactly you hit a key and adapts accordingly to reduce typos.
User interface
As far as the user interface is concerned, it’s predominantly a gesture-based one.
You can swipe from one live application to another without obstructing the progress on either.
The news of these releases has created a lot of stir among tech enthusiasts. The icing on the cake would be if the hands-on experience turns out to be as exciting as BlackBerry makes it sound right now.
mahananda.bohidar@thehindu.co.in