Blackberry Z10 Smartphone Review

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BlackBerry Z10 Touch Screen Smartphone

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It wasn’t long ago that Blackberry’s were the top dog when it came to smart phones. Products like the Curve and Blackberry Bold were the phone to have. Over the years though, as the Apple iPhone and Android phones became much more user and budget friendly Blackberry started to fade away, at least out of the individual user market. Due to the business nature of BlackBerry phones and the ability to remotely wipe business data off of the phone while leaving personal data intact, BlackBerry has still been strong in the corporate market. With the launch of the BlackBerry Z10 I’m sure they are hoping that the Blackberry Z10 will bring them back into the mainstream spotlight.

The BlackBerry Z10 is no slouch in features or specifications! At the heart of the Z10 we will find a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core 1.5GHz processor. This is a very popular processor, and there’s good reason for that. The S4 dual-core processor is very capable of chewing through day to day tasks with plenty of speed. Backing up the processor is 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. If the initial 16GB of storage isn’t enough for you a 32GB microSD card can be added. The screen on the BlackBerry Z10 isn’t the largest that we have come across, but it is a comfy 4.2″ with a resolution of 1280×768. The BlackBerry Z10 is relatively light weighing in at only 4.78 ounces and measures only 130×65.6x9mm (5.12×2.58x.35 inches)

The BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry 10 operating system have a feature called BlackBerry Hub. The BlackBerry Hub puts all of your accounts on to one page.

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From here I can access my Legit Reviews email, and all of my calls on the BlackBerry Z10.

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We aren’t surprised to see that the BlackBerry Z10 comes in a pretty typical package from AT&T, orange and white with the AT&T logo on the top.

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Flipping the packaging over and we can see that the back of the BlackBerry Z10 packaging shows us a picture of the phone, the name and that’s about it.

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Once we begin to remove the outer packaging we can start getting to the good stuff. The first thing that is presented to us is the BlackBerry Z10 with the all important ‘TXTNG & DRIVNG IT CAN WAIT’ sticker.

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Beneath the BlackBerry Z10 there are a couple of small boxes that contain some of the paperwork and accessories for the BlackBerry Z10. Opening up the first of the boxes we are presented with a pamphlet for Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. Inside the BlackBerry Z10 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core 1.5GHz processor. The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core 1.5GHz processor isn’t a new processor by any means, but that doesn’t mean that it’s lost it’s touch. We’ve seen several phones recently that still use this processor including the Samsung ATIV Odyssey Windows Phone 8.

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Below the Qualcomm Snapdragon brochure, we can find the safety and product information pamphlet.

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Contained below the paperwork and inside the other box is the accessory bundle in its entirety. The BlackBerry Z10 comes with a wall plug for a USB cable, USB cable with micro-USB, a hands free device, and the battery.

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The battery for the BlackBerry Z10 is rated for 1800mAh and a nominal voltage of 3.8Vdc. A quick search on Amazon.com and we can find an OEM LS1 battery from BlackBerry for as little as ~$40.

Design

Size

  • Height 130 mm / 5.12 in
  • Width 65.6 mm / 2.58 in
  • Depth 9 mm / 0.35 in
  • Weight 135.4g / 4.78 oz

Navigation

  • All-touch screen, with intuitive gesture based navigation

Keyboard

  • On screen BlackBerry Keyboard (portrait/landscape), featuring contextual auto-correction, next-word prediction, and a personalized learning engine that gets to know the way you type

Dedicated keys

  • Volume Up/Down, Mute, Lock (for Power On/Off)
Display

Resolution

  • 1280 x 768 resolution, at 356 PPI 24-bit color depth

Screen size

  • 4.2″ diagonal 15:9 aspect ratio
OS & desktop software

Operating system

  • BlackBerry 10 OS

Desktop software

  • BlackBerry Link software for your computer to enable synchronization of data and media
Performance

Processor

  • Dual Core 1.5 GHz

Memory

  • 2GB RAM
  • 16GB Flash

Expandable memory

  • Removable microSD memory card – slot under battery door (Up to 32 GB)

USB Ports

  • USB 2.0 high speed port – allows charging and data synchronization of the device with a USB cable

HDMI Port

  • Micro HDMI for connection to your HDTV or projector
Power

Battery

  • 1800mAH removable battery

Battery Life

  • Up to 10 hours talk time (3G)
  • Up to 13 days standby time
Camera & video

Rear camera

  • 8 megapixel auto-focus camera
  • Back Side Illumination for better low-light performance
  • 5-element F2.2 lens
  • Dedicated ISP (image signal processor) with 64MB frame buffer
  • Flash, continuous and touch to focus, image stabilization
  • Enhanced Super Resolution Digital Zoom (5x)
  • 1080p HD video recording
  • 4 DOF (Degrees of freedom) video stabilization
  • Time Shift mode for pinpointing and adjusting individual elements of your picture

Front camera

  • 2 megapixel fixed-focus camera
  • Image and video stabilization
  • 3x digital zoom
  • 720p HD video recording
Multimedia

Image formats

  • BMP, WBMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SGI, TGA

Audio & video formats

  • 3GP, 3GP2, M4A, M4V, MOV, MP4, MKV, MPEG-4, AVI, ASF, WMV, WMA, MP3, MKA, AAC, AMR, F4V, WAV, MP2PS, MP2TS, AWB, OGG, FLAC

Audio & video encoding/decoding

  • H.264, MPEG-4, H.263, AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC, MP3, PCM, Xvid, AMR-NB, WMA 9/10, WMA10 professional, WMA-LL, VC-1, VP6, SPARK, PCM, MPEG-2, MJPEG (mov), AC-3, AMR-WB, QCELP, FLAC, VORBIS
Apps

Pre-loaded apps

  • BlackBerry Hub, Contacts, BlackBerry Browser, BlackBerry Calendar, BBM, Text Messages, BlackBerry World, BlackBerry Remember, Docs To Go, Pictures, Music, Videos, Story Maker, Facebook, Twitter1, LinkedIn, Foursquare, BlackBerry Maps, Games, YouTube, Voice Control, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Compass, File Manager, Box, BlackBerry Connect for Dropbox, Print To Go, Smart Tags, Settings, Adobe Reader, Phone, Camera/Video Camera/Time Shift, Setup, Help, SIM Toolkit, Search
Security
  • Password protection, screen lock, and sleep mode BlackBerry Balance offering dedicated profiles to keep work and personal data separate and secure
Alerts & notifications
  • Tone
  • Vibrate
  • On-screen or LED indicator
Voice input/output
  • Integrated hands-free speakerphone
  • Hands-free headset capable
  • Bluetooth headset capable
Network & connectivity

Network bands

Z10

  • Quad band LTE 2, 5, 4, 17 (700/850/1700/1900 MHz)
  • Quad band HSPA+ 1, 2, 4, 5/6, (850/1700/1900/2100 MHz)
  • Quad band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)

Z10 (4G – Verizon)

  • LTE Band-13 (700 MHz)
  • CDMA Cell-band and PCS-band (800/1900 MHz)
  • WCDMA Band-1 and Band-8 (2100/900 MHz)
  • GSM/EDGE Quad Bands (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)

Wi-Fi

  • 802.11 a/b/g/n
  • 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz
  • 4G Mobile Hotspot Bluetooth

Bluetooth

  • 4.0 Low Energy (LE)

GPS

  • Assisted, Autonomous and Simultaneous GPS
  • Preloaded with BlackBerry Maps application
  • GLONASS Support

NFC

  • BlackBerry Tag with NFC technology enables communication between BlackBerry smartphones and other NFC-enabled devices with a tap
Sensors

Advanced Sensors

  • Accelerometer
  • Magnetometer
  • Proximity sensor
  • Gyroscope
  • Ambient light sensor
Accessibility
  • BlackBerry Magnify, for customers with partial vision
  • Adjustable screen brightness, scalable fonts
  • Teletypewriter (TTY) Support

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