Blackberry Priv

It's been a long wait. My last Blackberry was the Torch in 2010. I loved it and I loved every Blackberry before. I switched to Android for two reasons:

  1. I could not stand the philosophy of RIM playing against the users, ending up in frustrating user experience (more on this one here)
  2. The selection and quality of Apps, compared with Android, was shrinking rapidly.
But I was missing the Blackberry hardware ever since. And now it is back in an absolutely dream package. The Priv has the screen size identical to iPhone 6+, but in a smaller overall package. Yet it offers a physical keyboard. It is thinner than the LG-G3. The display is phenomenal. I had a Galaxy Note with AMOLED, then moved to LCD (LG-G3) and I'm so happy to have an AMOLED screen back again. I don't think anybody would go back from AMOLED to LCD and be happy. The LCD backlight is simply too aggressive on eyes and produces bleak colors. AMOLED is calm, almost matte, yet produces extremely vibrant colors. Plus it consumes much less power, especially when on dark background.

Blackberry has managed not to spoil the pure Android experience. The first thing I did was uninstalling and disabling all the Blackberry goodies and I've ended up with an almost pure Android experience: Google launcher, including the Now, Inbox, Keep, Chrome, Maps. The only Blackberry thing that's left is the touch keyboard, which beats the original Google's hands down. Afterall it's always been Blackberry's key competence.

Overall the Priv is a flawlessly engineered dream configuration:
  • 5.5 inch 540ppi AMOLED screen
  • Physical keyboard (it is not only about the keyboard being physical... it also makes the full screen for text display, almost a full page on a phone)
  • Wireless charging
  • 232GB of storage (200GB microSD card from SanDisk + 32GB on board flash)
  • A battery that easily lasts for a whole day
  • Fits in a pocket, comfortably
Nothing comes close. It's been worth waiting.

And PS. The phones have reached the saturation point. It is hard for me to have another wish that is not fulfilled already by the Priv hardware. Probably even bigger battery. Other than that it is perfect. Blackberry (and others) may now go and fire the hardware engineering teams. Instead of designing new phones they could go and do something useful.

PS2. Actually there is one hardware feature missing, I've been asking for... An integrated kickstand. More on this one soon. Stay tuned!

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