Tonyware

Has anyone bought the new Blackberry Passport yet? I am thinking of changing from iPhone 5 to Blackberry Passport. Main reason is security and office/business use. I read a bunch of reviews and watched a bunch of YouTube videos. It seems to me people either love the Passport or hate it. Some reviews are so biased you won't believe it! I didn't see any real business people reviewing it in videos or writing about it in blogs. Its mostly people who live their lives 140 characters at a time.

Has anyone used it extensively to have an unbiased opinion (for or against) ?

Whiskers

Got good reviews but I don't think you will find many people who bought it.

Tonyware

True, can't find anyone who actually owns one. Its more rare than an Acura RL!

One thing I read is that its using aptX codec technology for its Bluetooth audio and the iPhone 5 didn't. Thats some kick ass sound quality codec stuff.

I guess the only way to experience the difference is for me to wait for a month or two until they get some inventory since, once again, they are sold out the latest batch from the factory.

Mugen.Justice

I'd love to hear what you think of it, once you get it.


I'm one of those who really wants to see BlackBerry return to some of its glory. I find the Passport to be really cool. Although I wouldn't rock one as a personal phone, I'd definitely like it as a secondary/work phone.


(I loved my touch-screen Bold 9930. Alas, we've since switched to Galaxy S5s. )

Tonyware

^ I'll let you know as soon as I get it. I am on the back order list for about a month now, waiting for the shipping info e-mail to arrive soon. I bought it from their web site when it showed that stock was available, now I see it out of stock again.

Rumors about Lenovo making a bid for Blackberry. Last year the Canadian government rejected a similar bid from a Chinese company for another big Canadian based company. The law in Canada says if the company is worth more than ~330 million then the government may have to say something about a sale to foreigners. I kinda get the feeling that they'll reject that one too. Lots of government employees depend on blackberry, so I doubt they'll let that one go to foreigners.

That being said... I am still anxiously awaiting for the Passport to arrive.

Security is my main concern. I don't give a damn about selfies or twitter or this and that. Sorry, I just don't trust Apple with security anymore (currently using an iPhone 5). Not because of what we know about iOS but because of what they don't tell us. I have the feeling that they hide major flaws and go ra-ra-ra apple-apple-apple ra-ra-ra to cover their butts.

Android is too "open-source" for my taste with somewhat inferior corporate support when it comes to security flaws. In other words, cheap to buy and very expensive to find the right people with the right skill sets who know that O/S inside out to secure it.

Just a few thoughts...

PS. The second priority for me is good sound quality. Sorry Apple phone sound quality is mediocre to say the least.

F-C

The Lenova rumor has been retracted.

Ken1997TL

I got one from my brother who works for Blackberry, it's neat and well-executed. Hopefully their target audience gives it a fair shake.

svtmike

Tonyware seems very open-minded about it.

Tonyware

Passport arrived and I have been using it for 3 days now (I am referring to the crackberry on the left - lol).




The good:

• Amazing sound quality for phone calls, including a very powerful speaker mode.
  
• Its a hair bigger than the standard Canadian passport. Close match tho.
  
• This is a work horse for business. The new Hub that amalgamates all kinds of messaging in one screen is amazing. Easy to cross reference info between messages and contacts. PDFs and spreadsheets very easy to work with and view. DocsToGo comes with the phone, very handy to have.
  
• Camera (both front and back) works well. Some reports about loading slow are probably incorrect since mine loads up the camera software pretty fast.
  
• Getting use to the keyboard, after a few years of iPhone use. Easy to navigate the screen, copy/paste stuff with touch functions. The auto-guess words is pretty accurate.
  
• When first connected in the car it gave me an option to select what kind of car that was: Honda or Acura. I guess good old QNX software has become very intelligent lately. However, now that it knows its an Acura, it doesn't seem to offer anything more or less other than just connect Bluetooth (but there is an issue, read below in the "bad" section).
  
• The "Blend" software makes it really easy to connect to a PC and transfer info to and from with WiFi. No hassle since you can just copy stuff from/to the file manager of the phone that clearly marks file folders for music, documents, pictures, etc.
  
• I must have been asked about 20 times in elevators and Starbucks lineups what the heck is that and how to get one!
  
• The development tools available at their web site are pretty awesome and very well documented. I expected that from perfectionists QNX developers. I'll probably get more into development of security related apps on this platform when I have some time and explore the limits, but so far first impressions of what you can do is very good.
  
• I am not a big BBM fan, however now that I see how well organized it is I'll probably start using it more than other forms of communication. Especially the "feed" function that shows only the sources of news you want to see, but very well presented. More or less a very organized facebook style screen without the ads and annoying you-know-him or you-know-her stuff.
  
• The WiFi advanced screen is amazing. Gives you way more info than anything I have seen before about the network status. Too much to type here!
  
• Same with the settings screens. Some very advanced monitoring capabilities about whats going on inside the phone. Too much to type here.

The bad:

• Battery life isn't 30 hours as advertised unless you don't use it! 2-day no battery charge use is not gonna happen if you live a busy business life and thats the only device you have access to for all kinds of stuff. After half day of pretty much abusing it with texts, e-mails, browser, calls etc, battery was down to 55%. Maybe screen brightness has something to do with it. No time to go into the battery consumption screen to see what function consumes the most power, but I suspect the screen brightness since I had that maxed out all day long.
  
• The music play button (middle button on the right side) if accidentally pressed when the phone is locked, it will start playing music! Can be very embarrassing during meetings, especially if the song is NSFW - lol.
  
• Wish the "," was on the keyboard row that shows on the screen in edit mode, instead of having to swipe to show the extended keyboard on the screen that shows the comma. Not sure if this is configurable. I'll look into it.
  
• You need both hands. Holding it with the right hand, forget about stretching your thump to the return arrow all the way on the left bottom of the screen.
  
• It can get hot on the top right and bottom after extensive use. Not burning-your-fingers hot, but hot nonetheless. Not sure what the long term effects of that is for the hardware inside. I guess that super fast processor ain't getting much cooling when bombarded with spreadsheet calculations - lol.
  
• Bluetooth for music streaming connects fine in the TL but sometimes the steering wheel buttons for next and previous song don't work. I have to disconnect Bluetooth from the phone and re-connect to make the buttons on the steering wheel work.
  
• Native maps and GPS is OK but nothing to write home about. I am use to Navfree from my iPhone days. Luckily Navfree is available for Blackberry and works well.

The seriously bad:

• Somehow acurazine.com doesn't load. I am using the browser that came with the phone. It looks like its trying and trying and trying, almost like its stuck in an infinite loop, but never loads the site. Is it because its trying to default to the mobile version of the site and gets confused by it? No idea.

F-C

Good review.

Tonyware

Thanks.

A couple of corrections, since by now I figured out a few things...

• The "," ...or lack thereof on the extended screen keyboard isn't there because I added another language, so it is replaced with the "globe" icon to toggle between languages.
  
• The music... you need to go into the summary screen and shut down the music app so that the buttons on the side, even in locked mode, won't start playing music if accidentally pressed.

To add to the review... a potential security issue I need to look into:

• I am not sure, when I installed skype, skype requested access to my contacts to use them within the device or high-jack them and send them to the evil empire? - lol. Same with the Amazon app store. It asked access to my pictures, files, contacts (without giving me the option to refuse that !!). I wonder if all my dirty pictures are now competing with the JLaws or the Uptons of this planet