[User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

Since the era of N810 and following by N900 and N950 I was spoiled by QWERTY sliders which offers great typing experience and a full screen while input. And finally another high-end slider comes after it disappeared for many years.

I got one for myself since day one and guess a lot of QWERTY users here will be interested to hear some comments. I'll keep it short as bullet points.

- I know, I know, it not a landscape slider. :( The keys are quite small for my clumsy thumbs, compared with my previous BB Passport, but it's better than nothing. And despite the size, keyboard actually feels great, as other BB devices.

- BB sells it for privacy and security, but how can you have privacy while Google service fleet built in?

- Battery is only eye-catching on paper, a 3410mAh battery can only survive a full day with modest usage. It could perform much better. Guess due to early inefficiency firmware.

- Camera is mediocrity. Built in BB camera is crap (you can't even switch off annoying focus and shutter sound unless put phone to silent), using google camera can produce a much better photo.

- Android is as ugly as usual. Since BB sells for security I guess it is not easy to get it rooted. No fun. Plus Android feels worse than BB10.

- Curved screen feels great in swiping. But no root means I can't fully hide 3 navigation keys to enable bottom swipe.

- Hub on Android is just an improved mail client. (There is no email app in Priv.) Again worse than BB10.

- Build quality is not good at all. Big gaps in back cover and feels hollow. Gaps on sides and the battery cover may be wobbling. Slider not as strong as N810/N900/N950, but better than Dell Venue Pro. Guess portrait slider mechanism is generally not as stable as landscape.

- I wish something like Sailfish or MeeGo-Harmattan can run in a hardware like this. I really wish.

Finally I got a new qwerty device again. Hope it's reliable, we will see...

If any questions regarding this device I'm happy to answer them here. :)

http://www.liangchenchen.com/wp-cont...7197074793.jpg

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

Is that a theme? Where did you get that theme?

I have a BB Passport and I love it. The battery is great. Software BB10 is very feature complete and keyboard is great, but i would have preferred more buttons like on the Priv (weird name imo), so you don't have to use onscreen keyboard for numbers and other characters.

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

My only question would be around their implementation of the BB Hub on Android - how does it compare to the BB native implementation?

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

How did you do that theme?

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

It's a Harmattan Theme I made last year. I think that's the only one that has real Harmattan looking, not symbian.

I like symbols on keyboard as well. But on Priv even for dot and comma you need to press the combined alt key, unlike Passport there are separate ", and ."

It's a downgrade of BB10 Hub. As I mentioned hub on Android is an email client itself. (There is no separate email app on Priv) So basically in Android BB hub you see combined mail inbox as other phones, plus notifications from phone calls, texts and BBM, can't add third party chats or notifications in. I regard it as an improved mail client, not really the "hub" on BB10...

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

I like the looks of the device. I would love to have a device with a physcial keyboard. I just don't like android. It's sad BB found the need to use android.

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

Why dont they make a landscape slider keyboard!? :'(

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

I really liked the stability and haptics my tiny portrait palm/hp veer slider had back in the day. But perhaps it's just an art form long forgotten by our civilisation. Like building pyramids. :(

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

I was going to say that Blackberry ripped off Harmattan :)

How is the AMOLED screen compared to previous Nokia efforts?

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

chenliangchen thank you for this post because after a long time i'm considering leaving maemo/meego/sailfish ship. This BB Priv caught my attention in the moment of weakness (getting really dissatisfied with my Jolla) so it's a real option. The only thing that's bothering me is that Android has no real multitasking and i don't know if i can live with that (yet). Any comments about that?

Thank you in advance!

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

Android has real multitasking.
It's up to the developers to take advantage of that

Ironically, it has a better multitasking: For example, You can watch a video in a window on top any other app

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

Try keeping the key pressed for a second. On most Blackberry's this will type the symbols.

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

BB 10 does have real multitasking. And hase very nice swiping based interface, ripped from WebOS and N9. Maybe you should try the Blackberry Passport. It does run Android apps, you can even load Google App Store. But I never tried that tough.

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

Guess that costs more on R&D and iFans ninnies would not like it and hard to sell to the majority customers...

I don't know actually, did not really used N9 or their Lumias long enough to say, but I can't tell the difference. They are both great to me. The downside is Priv's 2K resolution is unnecessarily high, 1080p will be more than enough for a 5.4 inch screen, and 2K just drains battery.

You are welcome! :) I would keep a MeeGo/Sailfish device as a backup as they are so unique and efficient and beautiful.

I missed real multitasking as well. Android is a pain to use. If you can get your device rooted you can make "recent" key shows app running in background rather than all recent apps, that sort of limited multitasking. But for Priv, probably root won't be possible anytime soon. So if multitasking is your 1st priority, get a BB passport instead, BB10 is way better than Android on every aspect and you can sideload android apps on it as well.

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

No it's not. It has limited multitasking that may run 2 apps on separate windows, or keep a few recent activities. But it not even close to real multitasking, as per Maemo MeeGo etc.

Depends on your free RAM and cached applications, the system will kill some background activities automatically. Depends on how it was coded the app MAY resume from where it's been killed (As iOS's tombstone).

Even like 3GB RAM on Priv, there is no real multitasking. What a joke!

Re: [User Experience]BlackBerry Priv Portrait Android QWERTY Slider
 

No, it shows mmmmmmmmmm on long pressing...

Edit: depends on your input method. Stock BlackBerry input shows capital letter.