Check out the Good and Bad side of BlackBerry Z10

The basics

The BlackBerry Z10 might not be the last throw of the dice for Research In Motion (now simply called BlackBerry) - but it’s certainly getting close to closing time at the casino. It’s finally come up with a more modern operating system that can finally handle 3D games, blazing fast speeds and super sharp, HD resolutions, BlackBerry 10. And the BlackBerry Z10 is its opening gambit: a 4.2-inch number with a 1280x768 screen, a dual-core 1.5GHz processor and an eight megapixel camera. Is it a match made in heaven, or just another pedestrian phone? Let’s take a look.

The good

You could possibly lump this in the ‘Bad’ section just as easily, but the BlackBerry Z10 really looks like an iPhone 5. Several people we showed it to actually got confused between the two.

Of course that’s not necessarily an insult. There’s only so many ways to make a black slab, and if anything, it’s a testament to the pleasant balance BlackBerry’s struck when it comes to size: the crisp 4.2-inch HD screen is sharp, but also perfectly usable with just one hand, unlike many a giant Android phone. We’re also quite taken with the complete lack of buttons, still a rarity even in 2013.

The back of the phone meanwhile is old school BlackBerry, with a bumpy, plastic texture that you’ll either love or hate - we like it, if only because it doesn’t slip around like a glass sandwiched- iPhone. And BlackBerry hasn’t skimped on the ports: a proper micro HDMI slot lets you lash it up to your telly to play video.

If you’ve ever used an iPhone or an Android before, BlackBerry 10’s software won’t come as too much of a surprise once you’ve got used to the basic gestures - swipe up to go back, to the side to peek at your inbox. You’ve got your basic app tray, and a list of recent apps to roll between.

It’s snappy, especially some of the inbuilt apps, like Facebook, and it has some pleasant touches: the keyboard that predicts the next word you’re going to type makes bashing out messages incredibly easy (though yes, you can get much the same thing with SwiftKey’s Android keyboard); the Time Shift camera mode grabs images just before and after the shutter press so you can apply a different facial expression to you final image and remove awkward blinks. Best of all is the unified inbox, which is just a slide to the side, and pulls in all your emails, updates and Twitter mentions just like on BlackBerry OS.

It’s all decent enough - but it isn't particularly groundbreaking.

The bad

We don’t have many complaints about the BlackBerry Z10’s hardware, but we will say this: the camera’s pretty pathetic. You won’t notice it in daylight, but in badly lit rooms it doesn’t so much struggle as fail completely, churning out pitch black images where Nokia’s excellent PureView sensor pulls out detail.

No, the main problems are with BlackBerry 10 itself. Aside from a few nice touches - and a rock solid web browser - BlackBerry 10 feels samey, and even half-baked. BlackBerry Maps is still leagues behind Google Maps when it comes to data - and then there’s the app switching and launching.

Everything, no matter what you do, causes the screen to swipe back to the main screen, and then the app appears. It’s a weird decision, and one that’ll slowly drive you insane: compared to seamless multi-tasking on Android and iOS, it’s a bit of a mess.

Then of course there are the apps. While there’s no doubt RIM’s done a better job of pulling together big name services for launch than Microsoft did for Windows Phone’s launch two years ago, there are still glaring omissions: Spotify, Instagram - the stuff you take for granted.

Of course, you could save yourself the worry and just opt for another platform that has every big name instead - a problem for RIM that it doesn’t have a solution for. At least a working one - there are actually Android apps in the BlackBerry World store, but they walk sloooowly, not run on the Z10, to the point where they’re unusable. We’re not sure why BlackBerry thought including them was a good idea.

The bottom line

BlackBerry 10 on the Z10 shows some promise. There are flashes of inspiration in there - they’re just lumped in with navigation features and interfaces that feel like they were put there just for the sake of being different. If you’ve already made the jump to iPhone, Android or even Windows Phone, it’s not enough to tempt you back.

The only people we can really see sticking with it are those who want that unified inbox you just can’t get anywhere else. RIM had better just hope they don’t look over the fence ever though: it’s still looking very green next door