re: The Passport is a big, blocky phablet and BlackBerry's strangest phone ever

It's going to come w amazon appstore preloaded.

Given Chen's track record, I think it will surprise some people

John Chen shows off the BlackBerry Passport in new video

The form factor is growing on me. It looks so different. No mistaking it for an iPhone or an Android.

quote:

---

Their first touchscreen phones with the clicky shite were awful.

---

I really liked my storm.
The lack of apps though made it an easy move to an android phone.
Especially for more obscure apps like IRC clients, Blackberry had no viable offering.

The entire keyboard on the Passport is capacitive. You can do gestures on it...basically the keyboard is one large trackpad!

quote:

---

‘I’ll admit it. When I first saw the Passport I thought it looked horrible in pictures, in real life I love it. It is nice to hold and not too big, with the capacitive keys you don’t need to reach around the screen to place your cursor. Just double tap the key board, cursor appears then swipe to move. It looks big but it fits real nice in your shirt pocket. I got to play with it for a few hours and then had to hand it back. By that time it was more a case of having it forcibly removed from my grasp!

The screen is 60 characters wide (Kindle is 66) so documents are very easy to read and it feels extremely high quality.

It’s a proper grown up BlackBerry keyboard but it’s capacitive, like your screen. So, for example, go on the web, turn the handset on it’s side and then swipe up and down the keypad to scroll up and down the page. It is hard to comprehend but when you use it the whole idea makes sense and I fell in love very quickly.

Hopefully when people get this in the wild it will fly!’

---

More pictures of the BlackBerry Passport

I'm very interested to see a demo of that keyboard.

So the keyboard is the touchpad as well? I actually like the idea of that, though it seems like the keyboard is a little height deprived leading me to believe scrolling up and down could become a bit annoying.

Is the phone itself touchscreen based as well? Or only the keyboard?

They really are doomed to failure.

Their lack of apps will kill them.

They seem stuck trying to fill a niche group of people who still want a hard keyboard. This group will all be dead in 10 years.

Apple, Android, and Windows are over Blackberry right now. Hell, even windows is making some noise.

What we see from blackberry are just the death rattles before they eventually die. And because they stretched it out so long, it is unlikely they will even be bought up by someone else. They will just go belly up.

They are moving towards going to the Android route for Apps.

Here are the apps on my Q: netflix, Pandora, Slacker, I heart radio, Tunein Radio, Kindle, NYT, WSJ, Washington Post, FB, Igrann (Instgram client), Twitter, Parrot (voice recorder), Google maps, weather app, Drudge, Skyscanner, Flixster, NFL Mobile, Pac Man, Evernote, Amazon Appstore, CIA World Factbook, Sayit, Skype, Whatsapp, and a call recorder app.

Could get Linkedin, 4square, Pininterest and some others are available on the Amazon Appstore or BB site but don't want them. Those are pretty much all the apps I need.

Does it sound like my Q10 is hurting for apps?

Now that's a very good point. For specialized apps in industries like yours and also the medical field, they r behind. No two ways about it. Hence why Chen is going down the android route. Doesn't have much choice really.

I also suspect amazon appstore will get more robust with the fire phone.

My post was meant for more general users.

So what makes the Z3 different from the Z10?