Fresh, innovative, different - the all new BlackBerry Passport

Most of my friends use smartphones of the last generation or at least the one before. My HTC Sensation shows it's age compared to those and is a companion I got from someone else who does not use or need it anymore. I'd love to still use my HP Pre³ if only it would offer a working navigation and useful apps. Unfortunately both is not available for the wonderful webOS anymore.

Loving the outsiders

For sure the Android or Apple devices are always a good choice. But to no specific reason I tend to prefer to stick to the outsiders on the market.

This might be the reason why I chose the HP Pre³ after using the HTC Magic and HTC ChaCha for quite some time. Until today I miss the clear and fast UI offered with the Pre³ and still am very sad about HP's decision to abandon webOS and it's devices, which they both bought for a lot of money with their accquisition of Palm.

When I bought the Pre³ I already knew about the end of support for the Pre³ and webOS. None the less this was not able to change my mind. With the end of the support HP stopped the recovery features and AppCatalogue, rendering the Pre³ almost completely useless. From there on the time has come to say good bye to this beloved device.

There was no second thought required when I got the opportunity to use the HTC Sensation instead. Since then I am neither unhappy with it, nor fully satisfied.

But what to chose if not Android again? There was only one single choice left for me: BlackBerry.

BlackBerry as an Alternative?!

To be honest I already thought about the Z30 when it was released but unfortunately it never met my expectations when it came to hardware specs. It's specs were only slightly better than the old HTC Sensation. Sure, the old friend is ok, but as soon as I purchase a new device it should be a big leap ahead of what I already am using.

With prices way beyond of 500 Euros the decision of a new smartphone should be a smart one. At least such prices mean I could have bought a new PC of it as well. A lot of money for such a small device.

But there is still this one question to be answered: Is a BlackBerry device a full-fledged alternative?

To anticipate the result: With the newly released BlackBerry Passport they showed courage to engineer and release something very special and proved that this can work out.

The BlackBerry Passport specs

CPU
2.2GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801
RAM
3 GB
Internal Memory
32 GB
Extention Slot
MicroSD up to 128 GB
Display Resolution
1440 x 1440 px (453 PPI)
Display Type
4,5" AMOLED
Battery Capacity
3450 mAh
Battery Service Life
up to 30 hours
OS
BlackBerry 10.3 OS
Camera
13 MegaPixel with image stabilizer and LED flash light, 2 MegaPixel front camera

The BlackBerry 10.3 OS

Other than it's predecessors Z10, Z30, Q5 and Q10 the Passport will be delivered with BlackBerry 10.3 OS directly. This new version offeres a lot improvements over 10.2 and older.

Most obvious to the end-user the UI was modernized extensively and features a flat design as well as an improved user experience with a bit more efficient workflows.

Under the surface BlackBerry improved the Android App Player which is now based on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. This offers a better compatibility and much faster execution of Android apps.

Unfortunately notifications are still unsupported. Apps like Facebook Messenger will not notify the user of new messages like you might be used to on Android. The reason is that the compatibility layer is still not able to push notifications to the BlackBerry Hub. So the only hope is that BlackBerry will continue to work on that issue and promised to add the forwarding of notifications to the Hub with a future update.

Future outlook

Generally spoken: It's no secret that the mobile and smartphone market is highly competitive. Especially the big players like Apple and Google I hardly trying to gain even more market share. This will make it a big challenge to BlackBerry to gain a reasonable market share with the Passport.

Only recently former big players like Palm and HP failed to gain enough market share with webOS. For me as a former Pre³ user I am aware of how hard this can be, even with an excellent system and good devices. Additionally competitors like Microsoft are constantly losing market share. Slim chances for diversity on the smartphone market.

Only time will tell whether Microsoft or BlackBerry are able to survive the pressure from both big players in the smartphone market.

The end of webOS showcased only recently that elegant and modern technology is no guarantee to survive on the market.

Operating System

The BlackBerry 10 OS is BlackBerry's unique selling point just like webOS was for Palm and HP or like Windows 8.1 for Microsoft's smartphones.

One of BlackBerry 10 OS' unique features is security. But this alone will not make the Passport a top seller as BlackBerry had to face a lot of criticism in this domain in the recent months. BlackBerry will have to improve on security as well as on their mobile OS in general, espacially the amount of first class apps in their app store is limited though ompetitive and useful apps are the key to gain market share.

Apps and App-Stores

Besides their own appstore BlackBerry World where you can download BlackBerry 10 OS native apps the Passport comes with the Amazon App Store preinstalled which is offering Android apps which are compatible with the BlackBerry 10 OS own Android App Player. This extends the choice of apps by far.

But as mentioned earlier both app stores need improvements. Android apps need a better integration into the BlackBerry 10 OS infratructure and the BlackBerry World need more useful native apps.

Conclusion

Having a look on the whole picture BlackBerry has released a well engineered and well design smartphone.

Design and format of the Passport are special and unique. The whole concept are convincing. Pro features like the Hub and much more might be good arguments for business and enterprise partners as well as professional users.

The BlackBerry Passport can be purchased for 599 € without contract and offers a unique smartphone with up-to-date specs. It's worth more than only one thought if you are in need for a nice and professional, well engineered device.

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Published by

Pierre Böckmann

Born 1985 in Berlin, I am Software Developer, Blogger, Author, Open Source Enthusiast, openSUSE member and passionate openSUSE Leap user.