Blackberry Z30 - My Review

[Anonymous]

Members Review Phone Feedback by piperdog123 (aka Nick) of the Blackberry Z30 (a rarity on o2!!!)

My Thoughts:

About 4 years ago I had several Blackberry devices including the Blackberry Torch 2 (touchscreen) and a Bold 9700 (querty keyboard). They were ok phones although frequent software failures required them to go back to my then network Vodafone for repair and were a constant issue.

So when given the opportunity to test run the flagship device for Blackberry, the Z30 with a touch screen, I was straight in there. Thank you @Toby for the opportunity.

Plus points:

• Large screen (5.0 inch)

• 2gb RAM

• 1.7ghz dual core processor

• Blackberry 10 Operating System

• Connects to 2g, 3g, 4g, bluetooth & wifi

• Internal phone memory  a reasonable 16gb and

• Upgradeable memory up to 64gb

• Well built, feels a premium product

• Volume up and down on right hand side easy to reach

• Large battery, longer than usual battery life (2.88 mAh)

• 8mb camera is ok for family pics

• Good music player and built in radio

Negative Points:

• Noticeable lag when using handset on wifi

• Poor integration with all things Google & Android

• Compared to competitors the processor & ram are disappointing

• Too many clicks to perform actions compared to other high end handsets

• A heavy device at 170g

• Being dual band, wont work in the US or Canada

• 8mb camera poor compared to rivals such as Samsung S5 (16mb) or S4 (13mb), HTC M8 (13mb) for example.

Setting Up

For those familiar with Blackberry (or indeed any touchscreen smartphone) this was fairly straight forward. As I already had a Blackberry ID, I was able to access this within just a couple of minutes. To register is an equally quick process.

Once I had entered my Blackberry ID, the device updated to the latest version of BB10 10.2.1.2102 and promptly updated apps that had been preinstalled. Immediately I had logged in, the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) connected to the handset and my home wifi.

The handset came with extra kit including charger 9of course), earphones (which I didn’t use as I had my Samsung ones) and a prepaid o2 pay as you go sim (with £5 on it). Thank you o2!

Operating System

The Blackberry Z30 arrived with Blackberry 10.1 pre-installed. As stated above, the update to 10.2.1.2102 was quick and smooth and is vastly superior to previous BB6 & BB7 systems

Battery

One of the hottest topics with all smartphones is the battery. Surprisingly the Blackberry Z30 scored quite well on this front.

• EXTREME use (i.e. 4 hours wifi streaming, 1 hour on internet via wifi , 15 minutes on calls) battery lasted about 8 hours.

• HEAVY use (i.e. about 1.5 hours streaming on wifi, 3 hours online and 1 hour using phone with screen on) battery lasted almost a waking day.

• MEDIUM use (i.e. 4 hours online), battery easily lasted a day without charge.

• Overall the Blackberry Z30 should easily last a day on medium to heavy usage, possibly 2 days for less frequent users which is better than some others in the high end range.

Internet

The Blackberry Z30 performed pretty well online although there was noticeable lag when opening apps or browser. However once online the device was fairly speedy. BUT, and it is a big but, see below re Apps.

Unusally (as far as I am aware) the Z30 address bar is at the bottom of the screen, not at the top, however as soon as you are used to this it is not an issue.

Apps

Some of the key apps for me are streaming apps such as SkyGo, BBC IPlayer and You Tube. In Blackberry OS 10.2, Blackberry have trumpeted that their devices (Z10 & Z30) can access Android Apps that have an .apk file. Sadly this wasn’t the experience here.

Sky Go - is not supported on the Blackberry Platform, however it does come with an .apk file. So I downloaded same and got as far as entering my user ID and password only for the Z30 to say “no”.

BBC I Player - downloaded this from the Blackberry World Store (free app). On each occasion I tried to use it, after about 3 seconds the screen went to buffering and would not, under any circumstances, go any further. I tried this about a dozen times over 2 days. With my home broadband being BT Infinity 2 and running at about 70mb download speeds, I am fairly certain the issue was with the handset / app.

BBC I Player (online), I went to the I Player website, however this required Microsoft Silverlight to be installed and installation failed, which also prevented me from accessing Sky Go via that route.

You Tube - this was pre-installed on the device and worked very well. I spent a good 15 hours in total streaming via this.

Signal Strength

2g: Signal strength in my home area (2g only) was pretty good. On my current handset (Samsung Galaxy S4) there are places I lose signal, this was not an issue for the Z30. I was pleased with this. 3g was good for calls & texts but was not tested for data for this review.

Wifi: Good performance from the Z30 although there were frequent lags when opening up programmes or apps.

Bluetooth: Good performance with no issues.

Push services:

GMail, Facebook, Samsung all sync'd with no issues via wifi and was generally quick. GMail was slower than Facebook however this has been the same on my S4 for the last few days so I think it is fair to state this is a Google issue, not a Z30 issue.

TuGo

TuGo was not tested as part of this review due to signal strength being better (see above)

Call Quality

Its true, mobile phones can be used to talk to people!

The Z30 was fine with this, call quality was good, volume & clarity fine. There are volume buttons on the right hand side which are easily accessed even when in a call and were very responsive.

Notifications

Indoors, no issues with inbound notifications easy to identify.

Outdoors, didnt miss any calls as volume range good and was able to use my existing ring tone.

Screen

The Z30 comes with a 5 inch screen which, compared to most smartphones is becoming generally the norm. Picture quality was good although not quite as sharp as the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. It is, however, broadly on a par with the S4.

Touchscreen is responsive with no noticeable lag. There are options available to adjust the brightness to your own requirements.

Camera

As a high end smartphone, consumers today generally expect (or even demand) a decent camera. The Z30 comes with an 8 meg camera. Compared to the competition in the market, this is somewhat disappointing. If like me you use your camera occasionally then this would be ok. If however you are click happy then there are better options out there.

The camera itself was fine, fairly easy to use if you are familiar with smartphone cameras and the usual array of methods for sending pictures to others are available to you.

Would I Recommend This Phone?

Having had the device for a week, I would have to be honest and say I have been somewhat underwhelmed by it. The biggest disappointment for me has to be the lack of apps in comparison to Android. Overall, unless you are an existing Blackberry user, or are familiar with their offer, or a diehard Blackberry fan then I think there are better devices out there.

The full specifications for this handset are available at:

http://uk.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-z30/specifications.html

Conclusion

If you are a diehard Blackberry fan, and you like touchscreen, you will almost certainly like this handset.

If, however, you are currently an Android or Iphone user, in my opinion it is unlikely you will thank yourself for making the change.

At the time of writing, o2 are not carrying the Z30 device. It is currently available sim free from Carphone Warehouse for £480.  In comparison to a Samsung Galaxy S4 (£450) or the awesome Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (£530) I feel there are better choices out there for your money.

Finally, THANK YOU to @Toby and the team for letting me trial this handset as part of the Device Loan Trial scheme. This is my second device loan trial and my second review. I hope you enjoyed reading it.