BlackBerry may have had some troubled times recently, but with its new CEO John Chen at the helm it is being steered into calmer waters. The BlackBerry 10 operating system has proven popular with reviewers and consumers, and has gone from strength-to-strength across successive builds.
Meanwhile, BlackBerry’s bold move with the unusual Passport handset met with mixed success; it was widely criticised and even ridiculed in tech press circles, however, here at Know Your Mobile we absolutely loved the BlackBerry Passport, as did a few other fairly prominent reviews such as Forbes and Engadget, but more importantly it seemed consumers rather liked it too; we’ve had tons of feedback from enthusiastic Passport fans, while BlackBerry reported a lot of consumer interest in terms of orders and sales.
“BlackBerry shares fell on Friday despite the smartphone maker announcing better-than-expected orders for the new Passport phone, as well as slashing losses,” reports The Guardian. “The Canadian company lost $148m (£95m) for the three months to 29 November, a dramatic turnaround from the $4.4bn loss for the same period a year earlier. However, sales were $793m – significantly below analysts’ expectations of $927.8m and almost $400m lower than last year.”
We’ve known for a while that BlackBerry has had another device lined-up and waiting in the wings; the BlackBerry Classic. This is pegged as a return to BlackBerry’s roots, with a heavy emphasis on the keyboard experience harking back to the phone’s most popular phones from its heydey. On top of that though, it’s powered by BlackBerry 10.3.1 for plenty of speed, usability and functionality.
BlackBerry is now expanding the number of regions where the BlackBerry Classic will be made available, and next on the agenda is Indonesia. Here’s the official line from BlackBerry:
“We are very excited to bring the much anticipated BlackBerry Classic to customers here in Indonesia. The new BlackBerry Classic delivers the unique combination of our BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard, physical buttons and a trackpad to aid navigation and control – all powered by the updated BlackBerry 10 OS 10.3.1. Combined with the 4G LTE network capabilities of the device, the resulting user experience will make BlackBerry Classic a go-to productivity tool for our Indonesian customers,” said Sofran Irchamni, Managing Director for Indonesia at BlackBerry.
“BlackBerry Classic is a secure device that feels familiar in their hands, with the added performance and agility they need to be competitive in today's busy world.”
Ahead of our own review of the device, we thought it’d be interesting to take a look at what other tech sites from around the web have been saying from their own hands-on time with BlackBerry’s latest. Before that though, let’s take a quick glance at the specs:
- Measurements: 131 x 72.4 x 10.2 mm
- Weight: 177g
- SIM: Nano-SIM
- Physical Features: QWERTY keyboard (backlit), Optical Trackpad
- Display: Capacitive Touch 3.5in 720x720p HD LCD, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, 294ppi,40% screen-to-body ratio
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 dual-core 1.5GHz
- RAM: 2GB
- Software: BlackBerry OS 10.3.1
- Storage: 16GB onboard, microSD up to 128GB
- Primary Camera: 8MP, LED flash, 1080p video
- Secondary Camera: 2MP
- Connectivity: GSM/HSPA/LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n dual-band, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, NFC, microUSB (2.0)
- Other: A-GPS, FM Radio, loudspeaker, 3.5mm audio jack, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- Media: MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+/FlAC player, DivX/XviD/MP4/WMV/H.264 player
- Battery: Non-removable 2515mAh Li-Ion
Now let’s see what the reviews have to say:
CrackBerry
"It's a device worthy of the Classic name in my opinion. With the navigation keys and optical trackpad now in place and BlackBerry 10 adapted to support them, a lot of of the things that made a BlackBerry a BlackBerry are back. The BlackBerry Classic is a device you can hold in one hand and still get things done. You can slide it under the table in the boardroom and still pound out an email or BBM with ease. All this while carrying the same durable yet luxurious feel of older BlackBerry smartphones such as the BlackBerry Bold.
"The way I see it, if you're coming from a legacy BlackBerry smartphone you're going to be in for a treat. You're getting incredibly capable hardware, you're getting a pretty spiffy new camera, you're getting the latest and greatest operating system from BlackBerry and you're getting it all in a beautiful new, yet familiar, package and that's a pretty compelling reason to finally get rid of the old BlackBerry you have kicking around and get yourself upgraded!"
WSJ
"Unlike the BlackBerry Passport, the Classic is perfect for one-hand use. With a stainless steel frame and a soft plastic back, the 6.3-ounce phone feels heavy, but in a good way. And it feels more substantial than those delicate big-screen smartphones, like it won’t shatter after an accidental drop.
"I have been searching for just the right words to profess my love to BlackBerry’s perfected physical keyboard for a decade. It’s hard to describe how my thumbs dance on the fantastically sculpted keys without having to look down at them, or how the metal frets give the perfect amount of spacing to the rows.
"I believe the Classic is the best BlackBerry ever made. It lives up to every bit of the BlackBerry’s original purpose. This is the best phone to get if you need a real physical keyboard to plow through emails, manage your calendar, browse the Web…and not much else."
CNET
CNET’s Nate Ralph gave the BlackBerry Classic a fairly good score of 7.3 (out of 10), with an Editor’s rating of 3.5 stars. The tone of the review’s conclusion was largely positive but with a cautionary air regarding the smaller touchscreen:
“The BlackBerry Classic couples a comfortable, accurate keyboard with an attractive design that's sure to please BlackBerry fans. Support for Android apps will please the rest of us, too.
“ If you're willing to trade screen size for a superior physical keyboard, the BlackBerry Classic is a fantastic productivity phone for old-school QWERTY junkies.”
“The Classic is a clarion call to the faithful, a reminder that BlackBerry is still at the top of its productivity game. The company has also clearly taken recent lessons to heart: smartphones live and die by the apps you can run on them, so the admittedly limited presence of Android apps is a boon for BlackBerry fans. And as we saw with the BlackBerry Passport, a smartphone that champions productivity at the expense of a comfortable user experience is a bitter pill to swallow.
“BlackBerry hopes to reach forward by taking a step back. And for many people, that will prove to be a good thing: you're getting a great physical keyboard, the BlackBerry experience you love, and a taste of Android, for good measure. But the cramped screen real estate, meager Android support (if you don't want to hunt for APKs), and awkward, square aspect ratio will make this a tough sell for those of us who aren't wedded to physical keys.”
Pocket-lint
Over at Pocket-lint, Chris Hall gave the handset 3.5 stars out of 5, not a bad score by any means. However, while the review exhibited a common theme of the Classic “getting the job done” and being BlackBerry “doing what it does best,” there’s still very much an emphasis on the device being a bit archaic in the context of the modern phone market.
“The BlackBerry Classic undoubtedly achieves its aims. This is every bit an upgrade of the Bold, exhibiting the same strengths, broadening the experience and offering more for the BlackBerry user. Of the recent BlackBerry launches, the Classic is the keyboard device we'd most want to use, which is a definite positive.
“But as a consumer device there are limitations. As adept at messaging as it is, there's still plenty to miss out on, especially when it comes to media consumption and gaming.
“More than anything, the BlackBerry Classic feels like a throwback to all the things we loved about BlackBerry of old. It's a reminder that the BlackBerry Bold was a device of its time and there's a side to the Classic that still feels like a device of that time. We're not convinced it will bring back those who left BlackBerry for pastures new, because smartphones have moved on and their users have too.
“For BlackBerry fans, we suspect the Classic will be a popular and natural replacement to older devices, or that touchscreen BlackBerry that never quite felt right. The Classic might not be the latest superphone, but it is BlackBerry doing what it's good at.”
The Telegraph
The Telegraph’s Matt Warman takes an immediately negative tone with the tagline “better late than never” and adding that it “hardly matters anymore,” despite being a “perfectly good device”.
“There’s a huge amount to like in the BlackBerry Classic. It will make you more productive. It feels serious. And it doesn’t look too bad either. But in part you’re more productive because there are fewer distractions, and therein is the root of the problem. While this may be a tool for getting things done it is not really a tool of the modern world. As one analyst put it, this is ‘nostalgia as strategy’. All the old features, of security, of the ability to type quickly and of good styling have now been adopted by every major manufacturer. If you have to have a BlackBerry, the Classic is brilliant. If you don’t, it’s an irrelevance.”
The Guardian
Writing for the Guardian, Samuel Gibbs described the handset as a phone “diehards have been waiting for,” with a 3.5 star rating (out of 5).
“The BlackBerry Classic is the smartphone BlackBerry diehards have been waiting for. It’s keyboard is the best yet, the quick keys make touch-typing possible and the menu buttons speed up navigation.”
However, as other reviewers have noted, he added that in the current market the Classic seems to be lacking a “wow” factor.
“The Classic has little to tempt people away from the iPhone or the many solid Android smartphones, some of which are a third of the price. It feels sluggish and a bit clunky in use and is antiquated in look and feel compared to the competition. The Classic achieves what it sets out to do and is a worthy upgrade for users of a Bold or other older BlackBerry. Better options are available for everyone else.”
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