BlackBerry Z10 review

One cannot overstate the importance of this phone. This, the BlackBerry Z10, is the device upon which the fate of BlackBerry (formerly Research in Motion) hangs. That's not to say that the company will disappear if the Z10 -- and the BlackBerry 10 OS that it contains -- is not a mass-market success. But if this phone does not do its job of extending the reach of the 'Berry OS beyond those die-hard loyalists who have clung on to their Bolds and Torches and Storms, it's safe to say that BlackBerry is in for some very hard times.

The company hasn't exactly bet the proverbial farm on this BB10 release, but with massive financial losses tempered only by job cuts, plus an absolutely tectonic shift among the executive leadership and corporate culture architected by CEO and President Thorsten Heins, the phrase "make or break" feels pretty apt. So, then, is this the phone that's good enough to woo buyers away from the Galaxy S III or the iPhone 5 or any of the other delicious devices on the other platforms? The short answer is that no, as of now it isn't quite -- but of course it's a lot more complicated than that. Join us as we explore.

The good: RIM dug deep to give the slick-looking BlackBerry Z10 enough features to satisfy both consumers and professionals -- like a good camera and a sharp user interface.
 

The bad: The Z10's unintuitive gesture paradigm creates a learning curve, and a long list of OS inefficiencies and omissions sour the experience. The bare-bones maps app and a deficit of camera features are two examples.

The bottom line: Though it's not quite enough to draw committed iPhone or Android owners, the BlackBerry Z10's modern design and features give BlackBerry fans what they've hungered for.

On January 30, 2013, RIM (Research in Motion) announced that the company will officially be known as BlackBerry.

Members of the BlackBerry Faithful, meet your new phone. The BlackBerry Z10 has everything you've been waiting for: a sleek, modern, and professional touch-screen body with an up-to-date OS to match and 4G LTE support. You'll revel in the virtual keyboard's ease and in BlackBerry Messenger's seamless voice chats. You'll crow about the Z10's Micro-HDMI port, and enjoy the 8-megapixel camera with its built-in editing tools.

In the most important ways, everything comes together: a lovely HD screen, a fast processor, a camera (with tricks!) that's good enough to stand alongside the big boys.

Slip off the RIM-colored glasses, though, and you won't be able to ignore the minor hardware and OS irritations that nevertheless pile up as you use the Z10 over time -- like having to use an antiquated and unintuitive file system to create a new photo album, and a basic mapping app that can't possibly stand up to Google's best-in-show. For their part, BlackBerry detractors will plainly see a poor iPhone clone that offers little more than the usual features found in any present-day OS worth its salt.

If you're game to learn a few navigational gestures and your bigger-picture mentality lets you see beyond annoyances, you should feel justified buying the BlackBerry Z10. However, if you're happy with your current platform, there's no need to budge unless or until RIM patches up some OS holes.

The BlackBerry Z10 goes on sale January 31 in the U.K., February 5 in Canada ($149.99 on contract), and February 10 in the UAE. Expect U.S. carriers to sell the smartphone for about $199 on contract (about $599 unlocked) in March. Verizon was the first to officially announce that it will carry the white and black versions of the Z10 for $199 on contract. Verizon has the exclusive lock on the white version.
Helping to ensure you won't need a second shot -- at least when trying to take pictures of smiling faces -- is the Time Shift feature. It's very similar to the Smart Group Shot feature Nokia threw in its Lumia line courtesy of Scalado, capturing a blast of photos then letting you selectively cycle through individual faces so that everyone is looking their best -- or their worst, if you're a terrible friend. When it works, it works amazingly well, but unfortunately it wasn't always successful in our testing. We often had to take three or four shots before it would detect everyone's faces. In particular it had a hard time picking up mugs of the hirsute variety, which posed a bit of a problem for this particular reviewer.