Taking a swipe at style

Blackberry’s flagship model is a touchscreen phone that’s built with a touch of class.

The name BlackBerry has always been synonymous with the word business, and the Z30 model is certainly no exception to the rule.

With a sleek 5in touchscreen and a classy carbon fibre back cover which bears a black and silver woven design, this stylish phone is positioned to serve as a viable productivity tool for corporate go-getters or just about anyone at all who is always on the move.

The phone is currently sold in black, and although there is also a white version, it has yet to arrive here.

First glance

Unlike BlackBerry’s other recent models (i.e. the Q5 and Q10), the Z30 deviates from the brand’s conventional physical keyboard offering to provide users a full touchscreen experience instead, and without a single capacitive button in sight.

What this means is that you’ll basically get to enjoy the full extent of its display, without the need to sacrifice screen real estate to make way for the Qwerty keys.

The phone’s headset jack sits on the top of the phone, just next to its power/standby button. Meanwhile, on the right hand side of the phone are two volume control buttons, with a voice command cum play/ pause button sandwiched between them.

Over on the left side, you have the microhDMI and microUSB ports. The microSIM and microSD slots are also located on the same side as well, but they are only accessible to you once the phone’s back cover is removed.

The Z30 draws its power from a built-in battery, which the company says can last up till 25 hours for mixed usage.

In order to capture audio input, the phone relies on four microphones: One at the top of the phone, two located along the right side of the device (which are said to be for noise cancellation purposes) and one at the bottom of the screen, just below the BlackBerry logo.

Closer look

First off, the look and feel of the phone is superb. The materials used for the Z30’s casing feel sturdy and well built. We especially liked the back cover, which had a nice semirubber feel to it, making it easy to grip and to keep firmly in place when rested on flat surfaces.

The Z30 doesn’t have a full hD screen, thus putting it a little behind when compared with other contenders in the market, but its visual display is nevertheless pretty decent. As for audio quality, music came across loud and clear, thanks to the device’s three speaker grilles. Gaming and Web browsing on the phone was also generally a pleasant experience on the Z30.

however, photos and videos which were captured with the phone were not fantastic, especially with regards to portraits taken at close range.

Software side of things

Meanwhile, we had a fairly good impression of the BlackBerry 10.2 operating system. There was no noticeable lag experienced when running multiple apps or switching between them.

however, some may find it annoying that the Active Frames screen (which shows up to eight apps that are running in the background) is always displayed first before the phone proceeds to open the app of your selection.

It is also worth noting that due to the absence of any capacitive buttons, you will be required to do a lot of swiping in order to get things done on this phone.

For instance, to minimise an app you’re currently on, you will need to swipe your finger from the bottom of the screen upwards. The app will then be displayed as one of the thumbnails in the Active Frames screen.

From our experience, we often had to perform this swiping action several times before the app could actually be minimised.

With regards to Z30’s virtual keyboard, it was quite comfortable to use. Its keys were well spaced, making it easy to type with. Word predictions will appear atop various keys as you type, and if the word you are looking is among them, you would need to place a finger on that word and flick upwards in order to add it to your text.

For words that appear on the space bar, however, they are added by swiping your finger sideways. entire words can be deleted by performing a short quick swipe to the left anywhere on the keyboard.

It was a bit difficult locating desired settings on the phone. Although there is a search function on the main screen that may be helpful, it sometimes failed to lead us to the exact setting we were looking for and merely directed us to a suitable help page instead. Last of all, a significant issue that users may face while using the Z30 would be the limited range of apps that are available via BlackBerry World. This would be fairly disappointing for a user who intends to use the Z30 as a lifestyle companion. however, if it’s strictly for business, then perhaps this may not really be an issue.

The verdict

All in all, the BlackBerry Z30 is a pretty good all rounder but it’s a little disappointing to note that there aren’t any distinctive features on this phone which can set it apart from the others.

The price of the phone (RM1,998) is also a little steep when weighed out against its capabilities.

Although the phone may still appeal to the corporate crowd and loyal BlackBerry fans, we feel that it is unlikely to capture the hearts of other users, particularly those from the younger generation. This is due to the limited number of apps available on the BlackBerry platform and the lack of any cutting edge technological features but this may change with time as the operating system becomes more popular.

Pros:

Impressive design; decent multimedia experience; BlackBerry 10.2 software runs smoothly while multitasking.

expensive when weighed against capabilities; lack of distinguishing features; limited app selection via BlackBerry World.

Cons: