A Blackberry Q10 has landed at the office and we wanted to share some real-world pictures and first impressions. First of all, it’s really good to see that the Blackberry keyboard is back. On this site, the interest for the Blackberry Q10 largely outpaced the attention that the otherwise very good Z10 got (by like 10 times). This is a special moment for those who loved their QWERTY Blackberry device but wanted to have a good web experience, along with better apps and game.
The device itself is very compact: it probably has an overall volume that is somewhat comparable to the iPhone 5 (or 4), and it is half the volume of the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 if you want to go to the other extreme.
We will publish a full review of the Q10 in the coming days, but I want to reassure you right away: if you liked the keyboard experience of the Blackberry Bold, this feels very similar. There are some differences in form factor (the Bold was a bit wider), but since I used a Bold 9000 for about a year, I can hopefully draw a comparison that you will agree with when you try it for yourself.
The overall build quality feels very solid, and the device feels “high-quality”. That’s not really a surprise, but rather a confirmation of what we were expecting. The back of the device can be removed very easily, and its surface seems extremely resistant to scratches and not prone to fingerprints at all. The keyboard won’t show fingerprints as well.
Using the Blackberry OS 10 (watch video demo) on the smaller square display is more comfortable than I thought it would be and there is ample room for gestures. You can have a dozen app icons on any given screen, so *maybe* this can lead to many more swipes if you’ve got a ton of apps, but I don’t have enough for this to be an issue.
The web browser feels SO much better than previous QWERTY blackberry phones. Web and apps are the single most compelling reason to upgrade from older Blackberry devices, and that’s why I think that the Q10 had such high attention when it was first announced. I’ll leave it to the reviewer to bring all the details on the points above and many more. In the meantime, enjoy the photo gallery, and if you want our review to answer a particular question that you may have, drop a comment now, and we’ll try to address your concern.
Filed in . Read more about BlackBerry, BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Q10.