The BlackBerry Priv has been released, and the first reviews have been coming in over the weekend. It’s a bit of a mixed bag – people like the hardware and the keyboard, but the software seems to have bugs and issues. Some reviews, like the one from AndroidCentral, are radiant:
This is absolutely one of the best phones to be released this year, and while BlackBerry still has to demonstrate it can keep its promises when it comes to software updates this is already an exceptional experience. It’s only going to get better from here.
The review from Dieter Bohn at The Verge – certified keyboard enthusiast and Palm fan and thus an awesome person you can trust because anyone who sings the praises of Palm is a great person, as well all undoubtedly know – is, overall, positive, but the software issues he experienced did mar the experience considerably.
In truth, I wanted to tell him to do it. But I couldn’t. There are enough software bugs and slowdowns that I had to tell him to hold off and see if BlackBerry could finish the job it started here. Take those good ideas and buff off their rough edges, make the software just a little more stable. Because as a first effort at an Android phone, the Priv is remarkable, and I couldn’t wait to see what a second push would do for it (assuming, of course, that BlackBerry gets the chance).
I agree with Bohn that such software issues on a flagship device that’s supposed to save a company’s handset business are dealbreaker – this machine costs a hefty €699, and for that, you deserve a phone without such issues.
That being said, I’m still excited for the phone, if only because it will surely be picked up by the Android ROM community soon enough. This one is definitely on my list to eventually replace my Nexus 5.
Since BlackBerry is abandoning its ship, and though I am almost sure this is not going to happen:
I would want them to provide me a mechanism to replace my BlackBerry Passport OS to Android.
I do not know if it is just my experience, but with the latest updates, the experience I have with the Android apps I have is getting bad:
* Shazam does not work anymore (it crashes when loading)
* Spotify freezes a lot
* Skype freezes a lot and consumes a lot of CPU and drains my battery.
I am pretty sure these problems do not occur in natively Android devices.
Edited 2015-11-09 20:38 UTC
They don’t occur even on my BlackBerry 10 device.
Do you have an older 10.3.1 or 10.3.2 version?
Mine is 10.3.2.2789 (both z10 and Passport)
P.S. I used the apks from the Aptoide BB10store
I have 10.3.2.2474.
Yeah seems to be an older version. And btw it’s the software release version and not the os version itself.
But I guess as it seems to be a Android Runtime thing this version might be the better one.
My software release version is 10.3.2.2514
Btw. did you check if any process is eating your cpu time?
Also did you try installing the apks again? Maybe also newer versions? In general where did you get the apks from?
Skype is the best way to drain your battery on any platform in my experience, and since MS took it over stability has been very weak on iOS/Android too (all IMHO of course)….
Supposedly the bootloader is not hackable, so there probably won’t be any support from the ROM community, at least not for a long while until someone figures out how to get around the security layer.
That said, my contract is up and in Austria it seems this will be offered on contract at a reasonable price… definitely thinking of going for it, if only to make my life more hassle-free thanks to the keyboard.
Edited 2015-11-09 20:51 UTC
Is there a Rom community anymore? with cyanogenmod going corporate, and paranoid disappearing, what’s left that’s stable?
I really want to get this phone but I am a bit hesitant to be the one paying big bucks to help Blackberry work out the kinks. I am going to have my next phone for a couple of years and really need it to work.
Does anybody here have any real-world experience with it?
I don’t, but I’ve owned every BlackBerry before it because of their awesome keyboards.
My problem now is… I no longer prefer physical keyboards. The hazzle of landscape mode, switching between modes because the phys keyboard lack what you need, and the fact that I can type faster on a Galaxy S6 than on my berries adds up to a big NO.
It looks an awful lot like a old Dell Venue Pro mobile Phone (with Windows Phone 7) I used to own, curved screen and all: http://www.mobile-phone.pk/images/mobiles/Dell-Venue-Pro-2.jpg
It was a beutiful design. It didn’t work so well, but the design was great!
Edited 2015-11-10 14:34 UTC
The priv, it’s like buying an apple computer just to run windows and never macosx.
It’s just wrong