BlackBerry Z10 Review

by | Apr 2, 2013 | Technology


( Front and back view of the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone )

The BlackBerry Z10 is one of the first smartphones to run on BlackBerry’s latest mobile operating system, BlackBerry 10. The phone was revealed by BlackBerry, formally known as Research in Motion, in January,2013, and it takes advantage of a micro-SIM card to use cellular data. The Z10 has 130 x 65.6 x 9 mm dimensions, and weighs 4.83 ounces.

What’s in the box? :

  • BlackBerry Z10 smartphone
  • Charger (can be European plug or US plug)
  • MicroUSB cable
  • One-piece headset

The Z10’s Display

BlackBerry has upped its game with a 4.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 768 x 1280 screen resolution and a pixel density of approximately 355 ppi. The Z10 is the only BlackBerry smartphone available to this date that sports a high spec touchscreen display like this one.

Under The Hood
The BlackBerry Z10 uses a Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon chipset with a dual-core Krait processor clocked at 1.5 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, and an Adreno 225 graphics processing unit. The Adreno 225 GPU delivers half of the performance as the Adreno 320 graphics processing unit that is found in the LG Nexus 4, however, the GPU is still enough to play amazing BlackBerry 10 games. While using the Z10 smartphone, the user should notice no lag at all while navigating around the mobile operating system.


( The BlackBerry Z10 scored 8 out of 10 by iFixit in reparability )

The hardware and software of the current BlackBerry 10 devices make it possible to play graphic intense games unlike BlackBerry’s BB6 and BB7 phones. With 2 GB of RAM at the smartphone’s disposal, hardcore multitasking will be a breeze and that is one of the phone’s strong points.

Internet Browsing Experience

The Z10 uses the BlackBerry 10 HTML5 web browser. According to several reports, the BlackBerry 10 web browser is faster than Safari on the iPhone 5. The Z10’s browser can also take on flagship devices’ web browsers such as the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the Nexus 4.

See it to believe it in the embed YouTube video below :

Note – fast forward to ‘1:20’ for no delay.

Video credit : Gadget Masters Videos.

Battery Life

GSM Arena reported that the BlackBerry Z10’s Li-Ion 1800 mAh battery will last up to 312 hours while on stand-by mode, 8-9 hours for video playback, 6-7 hours for web surfing, and up to 10 hours while talking over the phone. The phone’s battery life looks good for a BlackBerry smartphone, however, to minimize battery life consumption, always lower the screen brightness on the device, close applications that are no longer of any use, and switch off unneeded features.

Storage Space

The Z10 is only available in a 16 GB internal storage capacity model, however, the smartphone includes a microSD card slot. The microSD card slot gives the phone the ability to expand its storage space with up to 64 GB of additional storage. Remember not to fill up the internal storage space with data, because the Z10 will run slow. Instead, only save important data on the phone’s internal storage and take advantage of a microSD card (assuming the smartphone owner has one) for BlackBerry 10 apps and games since the phone’s operating system and pre-installed applications will consume a hefty percentage of the Z10’s available internal storage space.

Camera

The BlackBerry Z10 is equipped with an 8 megapixel rear-facing shooter with autofocus and LED flash, and a 2 megapixel webcam. The camera captures beautiful pictures in daylight and records stunning high definition videos at 30 frames per second.


( BlackBerry Z10 camera – taking a photo )

List of the camera’s features :

  • Face detection
  • Image stabilization
  • Geo-tagging

What about taking low light photos with the Z10? :

It appears that BlackBerry has not improved its devices’ cameras when the time comes to capture photos in low light. After comparing the results of low light photo quality tests with the Z10, Galaxy S3 and the Lumia 920 built-in cameras, the BlackBerry Z10 is the worst.

BlackBerry 10 Camera Time Shift Mode :

To sum things up, the time shift mode feature of the BlackBerry 10 camera captures milliseconds after and before taking a photo making it possible to scroll back in time so that the person’s eyes are never closed or to save the perfect moment.

BlackBerry 10 Camera Demo – Time Shift :

Video uploaded by : Jon4lakers.

Try out the live demo directly on a web browser – give it a go at BlackBerry.com.

Other Specifications

The Z10 uses the following sensors :

  • Accelerometer
  • Compass
  • Gyro
  • Proximity

The phone supports Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band), bluetooth v4.0 with A2DP (and LE), NFC, microUSB 2.0, GPS with A-GPS support, and Java (MIDP 2.1). The smartphone is available in either black, or white colors.

Other less important but useful features to take note of are :

  • BlackBerry maps
  • Photo viewer
  • Document viewer
  • Organizer
  • SNS integration
  • HDMI port
  • Predictive text input
  • Voice memo/dial
  • MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+/FlAC player
  • DivX/XviD/MP4/WMV/H.263/H.264 player