After a long wait Blackberry has finally launched Z10 with its new Blackberry 10 OS at a special event on January 30. Rim quoted that the new OS and the Z10 were developed together and are tightly integrated together. The new Z10 smartphone looks quiet promising and has lot to offer with its new Blackberry 10 OS.

Design

The Z10 is a sleek looking flat slab in shape with rounded corners. The body is made from the conventional black plastic with a blackberry logo in middle on the back side. The design looks good and some what like the Iphone 5, but lacks in the quality of the material used. It has a detachable plastic back cover which when tug off shows the thin battery compartment, micro SIM slot and microSD slot.

The power button is place on the top along with the 3.5 mm headphone slot. The MicroUSB and the Micro Hdmi port are place on the left side. While on the right there are volume buttons flanking a center key that triggers voice control. Accessories includes a USB cable and charger in the box, along with a wired stereo headset, but no micro HDMI cable.

Specs

The new Blackberry Z10 is powered by a 1.5GHz dual core TI OMAP 4470 processor with a huge 2GB RAM. The device has inbuilt 16GB internal memory with 64GB Micro SD expandable slot right under the battery slot. The Z10 features a 4.2 inch LCD display with 1,280×768 pixel WXGA HD resolution and 355 ppi density which is larger then the iPhone 5′s 326ppi The touch panel is bright with accurate colors and very responsive making navigation at a touch of finger.

Connectivity includes quadband LTE, quadband UMTS/HSPA+, and quadband GSM/EDGE, in addition to WiFi a/b/g/n. There’s also Bluetooth 4.0, as well as the ability to share the 4G connection with an integrated mobile hotspot feature.

Camera

The new Blackberry Z10 features a 8 megapixel rear camera with autofocus and led flash. The camera has a dedicated ISP (image signal processor) with 64MB frame buffer like dedicated chipset and something seen first time in a snmartphone. The rear cam has continuous and touch to focus, image stabilization and enhanced Super Resolution Digital Zoom (5x). Videos can be recorded in HD 1080p resolution. The Z10 also has a 2 megapixel front facing camera capable of 720p Video recording.

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BlackBerry 10 OS

BlackBerry describes BlackBerry 10 as its platform for the next decade. it looks cool and will take you at least a few minutes to pick up. The OS is completely gesture driven and quite advanced making us wonder what was blackberry was doing all this years.

The UI is quiet sleek and somewhat different from other smartphone OS. Swiping up, from the bottom edge of the display, takes you  to the task switcher which can also unlocks the phone. Swiping down, from the top of the display, pulls out a contextual menu, the contents of which depend on what view you’re in.

At the homescreen, there are toggles for Bluetooth, WiFi, screen rotation, and notifications, as well as shortcuts for the settings and the alarm; above it, there’s a status bar with battery, clock, WiFi, and network signal strength. Swiping to the right on the homescreen, from the task switcher, takes you to the app launcher, a 4×4 grid of icons. The task switcher is capable of handling upto 8 apps after which BlackBerry 10 will automatically close the oldest, or you can manually shut them down by hitting the “X” icon.

BlackBerry Hub and “Peek”

There is new unified inbox called BlackBerry Hub which catches your every notification – email, BBM, text messages, Facebook and Twitter messages, and calls. At the same time you can also pull out a menu by swiping to the left again and pick one specific category.

The BlackBerry 10 also carries the “peek” features, to see the notifications from wherever you are in the system. Drag your finger partway up from the bottom of the display, and it zooms out slightly to show a row of notification icons; keep swiping, pulling the screen over to the right, and you expose the Hub. You then have the choice of pulling all the way to fully bring up the inbox, or let go and spring back to what you were doing before.

BBM

The blackberry messenger which makes it apart from other smartphones is completely redesign to fit in some new features.In addition to the voice chat over WiFi, the new features added in BBM 7 are, video chat, though all participants need to have a BlackBerry 10 device to use it. The video chat has feature two switch between front and rear camera. There’s also a screen sharing key, which basically shows whoever you’re chatting with whatever is on your phone’s screen at the time.

Wrap-up

The new Z10 with Blackberry 10 is huge makeover over from its predecessors. It’s easier to use, more consistent and understandable for new users, and implements touchscreen gestures more sensibly. BlackBerry Hub and Peak which collate every notification and update good options for those who have multiple social, mailing and messaging services which can be  pull together in one, easily-monitored place.

Fortunately the OS is still new with a 70,000 apps and still lacks some basic apps which may make its way in the future. Design wise the Blackberry Z10 is an average looking smartphone with good performance and hardware. The new OS is what makes the device a worth to buy. The phone is most suitable for who want a change from Android or IOS and off course the Blackberry fans who have been waiting for long time for change.

BlackBerry 10 still has a long way to go before it’s becomes an alternative to Windows Phone in the smartphone leagues to begin with. Lets hope it will survive in the market dominated by Android and Apple IOS.