BlackBerry Hopes Square Passport Smartphone Enough For Comeback

[Guest]

BlackBerry announced a new smartphone today, called the "Passport." The device comes with mostly competitive specs for a flagship, but the strange shape and wide keyboard that's hard to use with one hand may not appeal to potential customers.

BlackBerry Hopes Square Passport Smartphone Enough For Comeback : Read more

 

[gamebrigada]

From WSJ

"The square screen is the same size as a piece of American cheese. "

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-ER441_STERN0_M_20140923181621.jpg

Is that the new bunny with a pancake on its head? Or does it include cheese digitizing for later consumption?

 

[tom10167]

I love the idea of a serious phone for serious business people. Hope it works out for them.

 

[jedik1]

WOW a company promoting security uses Amazon App Store where 90% of the apps are fake, fraud and malicious. Good Judgement. Way to go to spread malware and fakeware.

Anyways what can you expect from BlackBerry who are like 10 years behind.

At $599...this is a joke. I will happily buy a One Plus One for $359 and add every security feature from Playstore.

 

[fimbulvinter]

It's kind of sad to watch them die this slow death.

 

[Dorosh]

I think the person who wrote this article is jealous because they probably own a POS iPhone 6 with only a dual core 1.4 GHz processor.
"Relevantly old hardware" he says? I think that fact is useless considering it's a quad core 2.26 GHz processor - still much faster than most cell phones and blows away the iPhones... Not to mention 3GB of RAM which is a plus for multi-tasking and being able to leave apps running in the background for added speed. I hope they do well and I want to buy one.

 

[edivalentin]

today's specs smartphone with best keyboard there is, plus secure mobile os

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

I think the person who wrote this article is jealous because they probably own a POS iPhone 6 with only a dual core 1.4 GHz processor.
"Relevantly old hardware" he says? I think that fact is useless considering it's a quad core 2.26 GHz processor - still much faster than most cell phones and blows away the iPhones... Not to mention 3GB of RAM which is a plus for multi-tasking and being able to leave apps running in the background for added speed. I hope they do well and I want to buy one.

As an avid Android user: GARBAGE. Have you seen benchmarks of Apple SoCs? Do you understand that you can only compare CPUs by clock and cores if they are using the same architecture? According to your logic, today's Pentium G620 loses out to an old Pentium 4 HT because the latter runs 400 MHz faster. (Newsflash: it doesn't, because G620 is built on far superior arch.) As for RAM, blame Android's RAM-hungry Java. I personally don't mind it - I like Android a lot more than iOS and don't mind getting a device with 2-3 GB RAM (although unless your firmware is some Samsung TouchWiz bloated rubbish, 1 GB is enough, ask Motorola Moto G) at same or lower price to get similar multi-tasking, but I assure you, 1 GB is enough for iOS. It's optimized, the same way my Ubuntu 14.04 is happy with 2 GB RAM max usage while Windows 7 goes "ho ho ho, look at that 8 GB, let me eat up 3 of that just for having Firefox and file explorer open!" If you don't know what you are talking about, do not post. Simple.

As for the new Blackberry: unfortunately, the author is right. Why buy it? "Security" is already sold out to governments who demanded access for it, hardware and features are inferior to iPhones and Android flagships, price is high. It's kind of sad, but this is probably going to be the last Blackberry phone. I never liked them (too many "security" gimmicks and marketing) but when a company dies, it's always sad to watch.

 

[edivalentin]

the fact that uses latest cpu/gpu from qualcomm isn't enough?and has 3GB RAM on an OS that is not as RAM hungry as Android isn't enough? and runs Android apps if you wish to install on it? in security terms is the only mobile os that is certified by the military/government use.i am sure BB brand will not die soon, at least as an software company...

 

[spentshells]

Look at the photo, it's awkward to hold and type with, what a bomb.

 

[MarkFrom NZ]

I jut bought my first blackberry, a q10, and its a best phone I've ever owned..Android is a very badly desinged OS its cumbersome...if more people knew how great Balckberry was it would be far more popular than Android phones...the only thing that has made Android phones popular is cheap Chinese samsung rip offs....

 

[rawoysters]

I've burnt PopTarts that looked better than this phone.

 

[spentshells]

I jut bought my first blackberry, a q10, and its a best phone I've ever owned..Android is a very badly desinged OS its cumbersome...if more people knew how great Balckberry was it would be far more popular than Android phones...the only thing that has made Android phones popular is cheap Chinese samsung rip offs....

Korea, Samsung is from South Korea. Yes the q10 is pretty sweet but this phone is truly the nail in the coffin.

 

[edivalentin]

Samsung and about every cheap android phone îs made in China

 

[spentshells]

You will actually want to look at the phone, samsung makes phones in korea as well as china, but just like everything else you buy something on or in it was made in china.

 

[NightLight]

i can think of noone who would want this phone. oh blackberry, death is upon you

 

[icemunk]

I heard it doesn't bend like new iPhone either

 

[Dorosh]

I think the person who wrote this article is jealous because they probably own a POS iPhone 6 with only a dual core 1.4 GHz processor.
"Relevantly old hardware" he says? I think that fact is useless considering it's a quad core 2.26 GHz processor - still much faster than most cell phones and blows away the iPhones... Not to mention 3GB of RAM which is a plus for multi-tasking and being able to leave apps running in the background for added speed. I hope they do well and I want to buy one.

As an avid Android user: GARBAGE. Have you seen benchmarks of Apple SoCs? Do you understand that you can only compare CPUs by clock and cores if they are using the same architecture? According to your logic, today's Pentium G620 loses out to an old Pentium 4 HT because the latter runs 400 MHz faster. (Newsflash: it doesn't, because G620 is built on far superior arch.) As for RAM, blame Android's RAM-hungry Java. I personally don't mind it - I like Android a lot more than iOS and don't mind getting a device with 2-3 GB RAM (although unless your firmware is some Samsung TouchWiz bloated rubbish, 1 GB is enough, ask Motorola Moto G) at same or lower price to get similar multi-tasking, but I assure you, 1 GB is enough for iOS. It's optimized, the same way my Ubuntu 14.04 is happy with 2 GB RAM max usage while Windows 7 goes "ho ho ho, look at that 8 GB, let me eat up 3 of that just for having Firefox and file explorer open!" If you don't know what you are talking about, do not post. Simple.

As for the new Blackberry: unfortunately, the author is right. Why buy it? "Security" is already sold out to governments who demanded access for it, hardware and features are inferior to iPhones and Android flagships, price is high. It's kind of sad, but this is probably going to be the last Blackberry phone. I never liked them (too many "security" gimmicks and marketing) but when a company dies, it's always sad to watch.

The reviews I've seen so far prove the speed of the device. The difference in "Architecture" isn't enough to make a big enough difference. We're not talking 6 generations of architecture difference here - 800 MHz faster WILL by far make up the speed difference in Arch. Also, now a days, 4 cores are better than 2 because the OS's have no problem using up 4 threads for any application or multiple at the same time. 2 isn't enough for long term anymore. We're not talking 8 cores here that would never be used.
I like how you say "good enough." Do you really want to be walking around with a phone that you over paid for that is "good enough?"

 

[Dorosh]

I heard it doesn't bend like new iPhone either

LOL!
No, i'm sure it doesn't.
Plus the phone is made a lot tougher, so it would likely rip your pocket before bending enough to damage it.

 

[firefoxx04]

Give me a larger resolution and a keyboard that actually displays a large amount of keys.

Productivity is not a display that is oddly shaped and a keyboard (from the pictures) looks too small.

Blackberry needs to take a hard look at the Note series.

 

[lpedraja2002]

Give me a larger resolution and a keyboard that actually displays a large amount of keys.

Productivity is not a display that is oddly shaped and a keyboard (from the pictures) looks too small.

Blackberry needs to take a hard look at the Note series.

I'm with you on this. They're trying too hard to be different and are screwing things up. This is just an odd device, looks like a weird cross up between a Compaq PDA and the old blackberry's. They should have went with the note design and based the OS on "productivity" features. The OS is probably good and perform wells but the device is lacking appeal severely.

 

[Dorosh]

Give me a larger resolution and a keyboard that actually displays a large amount of keys.

Productivity is not a display that is oddly shaped and a keyboard (from the pictures) looks too small.

Blackberry needs to take a hard look at the Note series.

I'm with you on this. They're trying too hard to be different and are screwing things up. This is just an odd device, looks like a weird cross up between a Compaq PDA and the old blackberry's. They should have went with the note design and based the OS on "productivity" features. The OS is probably good and perform wells but the device is lacking appeal severely.

Looks weird? Since when was productivity measured by how pretty things looked? The point of the screen is that it's actually almost as wide (pixels) as an average monitor and can actually read and display things on the screen more like a book than a way too skinny "i can only read one character at a time" screen. Durability is also a big factor here. To make it "pretty" and cost effective, means making it cheap and breakable. Like the iPhone bend problem.
Sure it looks weird. Quote from Kurt Cobain I just saw on Facebook: "They laughed at me because I was different; I laughed at them because they're all the same."

 

[belardo]

Isn't this more like a SQUARE phablet? I also mean SQUARE as in un-cool.

Looks like it could be awkward... but its high-res... so YOU do get more screen space than say a 1280x720 display... more so than a 1920x1080... er.. okay, actually its the same. But the problem is watching a 1920x1080 movie and getting a smaller display.