One of the awesome things about BlackBerry 10 is the ability to run Android applications - either ports downloaded from BlackBerry World or apps you sideloaded yourself. Technically these *are* BlackBerry apps when you install them, since the Android .apk files have been converted to .bar files, but the apps are essentially all Android and run within the Android App Player environment on BlackBerry 10.

Right now the Android App Player on BB10 is running Gingerbread (Android v2.3), but support for Jelly Bean (v4.2) has been announced and is coming soon, which should see a further boost in the performance of how well ported Android apps run on BlackBerry 10. Even now, the apps mostly run well and often times you can't even tell that they are Android aside from parts of the UI.

One catch you might find is that navigating them can be a bit troublesome at times if you don't know what you're doing. Prime example - I handed my BlackBerry Z10 off to my wife while it was in an Android application. Less than a minute later she was asking me "how do I go back?". If you're a bit stuck using Android apps on your BlackBerry 10 device, keep reading and we'll break it down for you.

So you're thinking of switching your Android phone to a new BlackBerry 10 device?

You've come to the right place. Here we'll lay out what you need to know before making the leap. BlackBerry 10 can give you nearly everything you already have on your Android phone so making the switch shouldn't be too hard. Keep reading to see how it all pans out.