BlackBerry Priv
paul dimery spe nds the month watchi ng videos and taking ph otos with hi s new handset
PRICE £550 URL uk.blackberry. com dimensions (L xw x d) 147 x 77.2 x 9.4mm DISPLA Y 5.4-inch AM OLED, 1,440 x 2,560 pixels OS Android 5.1.1
CHIPSET Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 MEMO RY 32GB (up to 200GB with Micro SD card; 3GB RAM
CAM ERAS 18MP rear; 2MP front
Last month, I spoke about the size, display and build quality of this groundbreaking (for BlackBerry) phone. In case you missed it, I was impressed, not to mention surprised that BlackBerry had managed to come up with a handset that could genuinely compete with the smartphone world’s leading lights. I spent more time examining the display this month, as I experimented with the phone’s camera and media-playing capabilities.
Speaking as someone who’s never owned a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, and have therefore not had the pleasure of using a dual-curved screen, I found browsing YouTube on the Priv’s curved display to be a truly satisfying experience. Scrolling is smooth and fast, and the colours are beautiful – vibrant without being cartoony. Making things even better was the rear speaker, which was sufficiently loud and bassy to do justice to some of Michael Jackson’s classic videos – although not quite powerful enough to get me dancing along to Billie Jean! It’s worth noting here that I found the virtual keyboard to be much better than the physical keyboard when typing out the names of songs/videos. I accept that this preference is partly because I haven’t used a physical keyboard since about 2008, but the Priv’s virtual keyboard, with its large and clear keys, is genuinely a joy to use – better than the one on my LG G4, for example.
The only thing that bothered me was the thick orange navigation bar that kept appearing when I was trying to watch a video – I don’t know if this is a standard Android Lollipop feature, but it struck me as being completely unnecessary, adding complication that wasn’t needed.
Next, it was time to try out the cameras. The main snapper on my LG G4 is magnificent and takes consistently excellent pictures, so I went into this test expecting to be disappointed. However, the results were really good. Not quite up there with the G4, but the colour and clarity made me nod in appreciation, and it was only when I zoomed in close that the picture began to deteriorate. Even in low light, the Priv’s camera held its own, although it seemed to take an age to actually snap the picture.
I also found that scrolling through my photos was an odd experience, as the phone takes its time working out which size and format it should display the picture in, giving your photo album a strange, hall-of-mirrors effect. It gets there eventually, but it’s a little irritating. There’s an auto setting for panoramic shots, which saves you having to download an app, brightness can be tweaked on the fly, and the Priv also lets you take video selfies, which will be a Godsend for the vain (I’m not talking about myself, of course).
This handset is by no means perfect so far, then, but it’s not a million miles off. Next month, I’ll be finding out what the Priv is like as a pocket office – after all, it’s in this sphere that BlackBerry made its name.
I loved watching YouTube videos on the Priv, and the camera takes nice pics, if not the best in class
paul dimery , pr oducti on edit or