It’s been almost a year since John Chen was appointed to save Blackberry and it’s clear that his grand plan has, at least, stopped the company losing money hand over fist. In the Canadian outfit’s latest three month report, it reveals that losses have been trimmed from $4.4 billion last year to a much more manageable $148 million. Of course, it’s clear that as the business reinvents itself as a software-and-services company, manufacturing smartphones has increasingly become a side project.
Pretty amazing turnaround financially, but I doubt it’ll be enough for the future of Blackberry OS – even if the company itself survives.
I still want the red Passport, though.
…for me. I’ve been using it for about 2 months now, coming from a Z10 and an iPhone. I find that the entire BlackBerry OS and the Hub experience to be very nice, and the form factor of the Passport works well for me.
I work in the financial sector, and the only smart phones allowed are company issued BlackBerry devices. The fact is that when the regulators audit us, a whole series of questions disappear when we tell them we use BlackBerry and BES as our mobile solution. For a very small IT department with limited resources it’s the best fit for our organization. And once the Z10 was rolled out people stopped asking to have iPhones as their needs were now covered.
But not everybody preferred the Passport when we started offering them a choice among the Z10, Z30 or the Passport. What I’ve noticed and when talking to them is it came down to whether or not they preferred a one handed experience or 2 when using the device. Once you’re into the groove of using a Z10 one handed it’s extremely easy to fly around the environment. The Passport is definitely a 2 handed device and that’s where some people found that the Passport wouldn’t work for them. (The classic is already getting requests, I think it will be a popular option where I work.)
I’m comfortable using either device, and the large screen is super for content consumption and I really appreciate the physical keyboard…it’s sooo nice to be able to touch type again! The virtual keys on the top row work well as does using the keyboard as a touch pad.
Add Snap for Android apps (or Amazon Store), BlackBerry Blend for cross platform access to the BlackBerry and for me it’s a super experience.
I can appreciate somebody who is invested in the Apple or Android platforms not finding any BlackBerry device compelling, and for those people they probably won’t care one way or another about the Passport or any BlackBerry smart phone. If you haven’t committed deeply into any existing environment, the BlackBerry devices, and perhaps the Passport in particular, are worth consideration.
Edited 2014-12-22 02:48 UTC
Could you write a review for OSNews? This comment was well written.
I would LOVE to publish a proper Passport review on OSNews. Preferably written by myself, but I’ve bought too many phones and similar nonsense lately to justify purchasing one, so one written by another user would be perfect
.
I switched from an android phone to a z10 about 3 months ago, I love the os and the size of the phone. In my opinion phones are just getting too freaking big. Even tho the os is pretty nice it doesn’t do as much any android phone I will probably get another droid phone in a few months.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I don’t think I could do a full review of the Passport justice. It’s easy to write a few short paragraphs and appear coherent but I’m not so sure I would succeed after I got past the feel good intro stage. It’d probably end up like the vast majority of internet reviews, mostly hollow and boring, and highly likely to attract trolls. Good review writing is a lot of work, and I must say, I’m pretty lazy. My hats off to anyone who puts together a review that’s more than an ode themselves with the not so subtle goal of seeing their own smattering of words on the internet.
(This message was brought to you by 2 thumbs and a BlackBerry Passport.)
You can make it a writeup of your experience. Things you liked. Things you didn’t like. Things you did not expect. Your experience will be unique.
I have the Red Passport myself, and I echo your well written post.
The red one huh?
I want it so bad.
Absolutely. It was a day one purchase after I already had the black one. It’s just a bit thicker probably because of the paint, and oh-so-gorgeous.
Now you’re just rubbing it in :<
pics or it didn’t happen
Here ya go. Mounted in my car.
http://i.imgur.com/LXfYe5F.jpg
I had a chance to hold the Passport at a BlackBerry mobile showroom in Stuttgart. The shape is weird.
You can fit a lot of text, granted, but I don’t think I like the phone (and that is coming from a Q10).
I liked the Classic though.