A few days ago I was digging through Twitter and came across an account which showed off a pre-release version of the BlackBerry Classic. As there wasn't a whole lot of information to go along with it, I simply retweeted the tweet with the BlackBerry Classic and posted the images in the forums. Since then, the individual behind the account has been answering questions about the device for folks asking but has now posted up a rather simple review for everyone based on that pre-release hardware.
As I recently got my hands on Blackberry Classic, it felt solid, a bit heavy, easy to grip and to slide into jeans pocket. The rubber like back cover provides a much better hold than leather. Screen size seems just all right for reading emails, SMS or even for browsing.
The best thing I like about this phone is that you are not only limited to the touch screen. If there is a small hyperlink on the screen which is usually hard or sometimes impossible to click by using the touch, you can use trackpad just like a mouse on a desktop computer. To top it up, the responsive keyboard with decent key size, I didn't miss my desktop/laptop computer while using this phone for browsing, emailing or even texting.
I used this phone with LTE connection and the speed of loading pages were comparable to my desktop computer which is connected to 100 Mbps connection. Playing videos in native YouTube app is fluid. The only concern with this phone is the video playback experience on square screen. As you can imagine that 16:9 videos can't fit on square screen like it can on a smartphone without a keyboard.
Audio quality is not bad at all and comparable to Samsung S5 or may be little better. Phone call quality is also good. Switching between applications or using gestures quickly is so fluid that you can't even tell that if it's putting any burden on processor or memory at all. Camera quality and application is also up to the mark.
The only setback I have noticed and I was hoping that it will be taken care of with the upgrade of OS 10.3.1.747, which just happened almost three days ago is: The only option for installing Android applications is through Amazon App Store.
Finally, I think this is an absolute enterprise / business class device and with rich multimedia features it can be used by anyone. And being a Windows Phone user, I wish Windows 8 could run on this hardware.[sic]
As I mentioned, it's a simple review and doesn't go into great detail but it's a nice look at the device a lot of folks are looking forward to. Interestingly, the largest complaint in the review is the Amazon Appstore being the only way to install Android apps, which savvy BlackBerry 10 users know is simply not true. You can take the advanced method of installing Snap, directly downloading and installing 1Mobile Market, SlideMe, F-Droid and more.
BlackBerry is set to launch the BlackBerry Classic on December 17th in New York, Singapore and Frankfurt and has already begun taking pre-orders for those wanting to be among the first to get their hands on one. You can head on over to Osama's site for a look at the full review, which includes a video that couldn't be embedded here and watch out for our review coming soon!
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