The BlackBerry Passport is a promising effort by the Canadian smartphone maker, but it seems like the company got the pricing very wrong.
You can now officially apply for the BlackBerry Passport in India. Ok, apologies for the pun. It’s true though, BlackBerry today announced its newest smartphone in the country and it is going to be available for pre-order exclusively on Amazon.in from today till October 10. The device will go on sale and be available on Amazon and in retail from October 10 onwards.
We’ll have the phone with us for review soon, but until then, we are ready with a first impression of the Passport.
Display and Size
It is huge, no questions asked. 4.5 inch on an Android phone doesn’t usually make it very big, but the square screen on the Passport makes it positively humongous. Now, a lot of people may call this a disadvantage, but it’s really not. You’re not going to buy this device for single handed usage. Neither can you type fast with one hand on any other smartphone. Those days ended with the demise of the T9 dictionary that feature phones were famous for.
The BlackBerry Passport justifies the size with a very good screen. The 1440x1440p good for everything that you’ll do on it. Moreover, the square size gives it somewhat of an edge when it comes to editing documents, spreadsheets and writing mails. BlackBerry has also gone with a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection on the phone, giving it the premium feel as well. The touch performance is much better on a Moto G and some other devices, but there should be no complaints with the Passport’s feel either.
One legitimate issue though is that this device won’t be easy to carry around. You’re not going to be putting this in any of your pockets. You will most likely be carrying it in your hand all the time. It’s not like the Passport is the biggest smartphone ever, but the square shape may very well be difficult for many to handle.
Build
The Passport is a well built smartphone that is made of polycarbonate plastic, with a metallic finish on the frame. It weighs all of 194 grams, but feels nothing like it. Considering its size, this phone actually feels quite great in the hand and not very heavy. It is also quite sturdy and tough and seems like something that can take a few falls easily.
Keyboard
The screen is square, but the keyboard is rectangular and a big contributor to the steep learning curve that this device comes with. BlackBerry has made this an interesting aspect for the phone, adding the touchpad functionality to it. You can flick up on the three row keyboard for autocomplete and flick down for numbers. While this could be a very useful feature, it gives the device a steep learning curve.
How? BlackBerry users are well versed with the QWERTY keypad and love it, but this is not like the ones they have used before. For others, QWERTY will always be new and this adds to it. So the touchpad aspect of the keyboard divides it into three segments. Word predictions show up on each of these segments on screen and you simply have to flick up on the part of the keyboard where the word is appearing. The problem with this though is that when you’re not accustomed to it, your hand will keep going across the screen. This is an issue, because swiping up from the bottom of the screen brings you back to the home screen from whatever you’re doing. Of course, you will get used to this with time, but it will take you time, irrespective of what you used last.
The keys on the keyboard also are very hard and if you’re coming from a touch screen background then you may take time to develop your typing speed. Alternatively, the keyboard also feels very strong, meaning your keys won’t be damaged because of a few falls or impact.
Blackberry Assistant
Well, its about time that BlackBerry brought something parallel to Siri, Cortana and Google Now. But the company didn’t do as well a job with it as others. The Blackberry Assistant is a very basic smart assistant to say the least. It is slow to react to your commands and doesn’t activate automatically through voice like the Google and Apple counterparts. Neither is it as responsive or useful as them. It’s just there, so that BlackBerry can say it has a smart assistant. It really doesn’t have much use right now and nothing to show over its competitors.
Apps
Just like the Z10 and Z30, the Passport is also capable of running Android apps and BlackBerry supplies the Amazon App Store pre-loaded onto its Passport for this purpose. It gives you some variety in terms of apps, but to be honest, the Amazon app store is nowhere close to the Google or Apple counterparts.
I tried playing Candy Crush though and a pleasant surprise was in the fact that the game seems to be adjusting to this device. It isn’t stretched out or running with black strips on the screen, which many had been concerned about. The Passport has that aspect covered and I think I enjoyed Candy Crush a little more on the square real estate than on the rectangular ones we usually have.
Camera
You don’t often talk about the camera on BlackBerry smartphone. They aren’t very well known for it. In fact, even BlackBerry didn’t talk about it at the launch. Nevertheless, the 13 MP shooter at the back is definitely the best ever on a BlackBerry smartphone. My colleague Nikhil had written in his BlackBerry Z30 review that you don’t buy a BlackBerry phone for the camera, but if you do happen to want a BlackBerry with a good camera, then this is it. The 13 MP shooter perhaps lacked a bit in terms of sharpness, but seemed very good with white balance and colour reproduction.
Price
This is where you throw up your hands in defeat and scream, “Why BlackBerry Why!”
The new Passport has been priced at Rs. 49,990 and while BlackBerry showed a lot of confidence, encouraging everyone to compare its device to other flagships, it's just too much. The Passport would have made so much more sense, even at a 40k price range, although that would have been a tad too much as well. This pricing wouldn’t have been surprising in the old days of the mighty BlackBerry, but for a recovering company, it is definitely too much.
For one, people don’t buy a BlackBerry phone today because there’s a lack of faith in the company. This pricing would do nothing to quell that. Secondly, the company has had to cut prices on both the BlackBerry Z10 and Z30 earlier and many would be tempted to wait for that with the Passport too. I would have accepted the price point without complaints if BlackBerry was still the top class business phone that it used to be. But security alone can’t keep the company there.
The Passport has a lot of features and is a very good device in many respects, but the price may just kill it. I don’t see even business users going for a Passport when they can get the best of Android and iOS at around the same price point.
Follow Us
Prasid Banerjee
Trying to explain technology to my parents. Failing miserably. View Full Profile
