A Berry that's super sweet

The first BlackBerry to run on the BlackBerry 10 operating system, the BlackBerry Z10 is sleek, sexy and provides a faster and smarter performance than previous BB phones.

On the hardware side, the Z10 is powered by dual-core 1.5 GHz processor and has 2 GB RAM and16 GB on-board storage, expandable with a hot-swapping microSD card of up to 64 GB.

It also features a 4.2-inch, 4-point multi-touch IPS LCD display with 1,280 x 768 resolution at 356 pixel per inch depth. 

In our test the Z10 performed fast and smoothly, boasting functions that are intuitive to navigate. Its browser rendered web pages fast and we found the social network apps were well integrated and linked to the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger).

Scrolling and zooming of the browser was fluid and responsive. And the touch screen was very responsive too.

The good performance can be credited to the new operating system, which features “peek’ and “flow” functions. You can “flow” seamlessly from one app to another and can easily “peek” into BlackBerry Hub, the most useful feature of the new OS.

The heart of the smart functions of the BlackBerry 10, the Hub is where you manage all your conversations whether personal or work related, email, BBM messages, social media updates or notifications. The BlackBerry Hub can be instantly viewed or accessed from any app or task you are in just by swiping your finger up and then to the right. You can then immediately act on the notifications shown on the Hub. The new OS is a gesture-based platform that allows you to reverse the gesture to go back to what you were doing.

In another example of the seamless flow, you can tap on an event to instantly flow into the Calendar, where you can tap and view the People or Contacts that are associated with the event, as well as emails or other correspondence you have had about the event with each of those people.

The BlackBerry 10 makes the Z10 a phone with full multitasking capabilities. You can have up to 8 apps running at one time on the Active Frame panel. When an app runs in full screen, swipe your finger up from the bottom bezel of the display and the app will go to a minimised state while still active functioning as an Active Frame displayed on the Active Frame panel. The Active Frame can display certain information. For example, the Weather app’s Active Frame shows the current temperature, conditions and forecast summary.

BBM in BlackBerry 10 OS has been improved to seamlessly integrate with other social network apps, such as Foursquare. Best of all, the new BBM includes voice calling and video chat, and introduces the ability to share your screen with another BlackBerry 10 contact.

The Z10 has a better camera then earlier BlackBerry smart phones. The camera is ready for shooting just by pressing the camera icon on the stand-by Home screen and captures the next shot when you tap the relevant display. The camera also “flows’ with the Pictures app by sending the captured photos to the apps for editing and enhancing with filters.

A very nice feature is called Time Shift. It is useful for taking group shots and ensures that everyone is smiling with eyes wide open. After taking a shot with TimeShift, you can tap on a face whose eyes are closed and drag the knot to the scene where the eyes are open.

The 8MP camera takes good quality shots for a mobile phone in well-lit environment. The camera can also shoot good-quality 1080p video.

More apps can be downloaded and installed from BlackBerry World storefront, which now includes more than 100,000 BlackBerry 10 apps. BlackBerry has also been working with local partners and developers to bring a variety of popular Thai applications to the new platform, including GMM Grammy Music Store, Kantana TV, Lakorn Online, Thai Airways, ThaiTV3, and Sanook.com.

The Z10 is available in black and white and is in shops now for Bt20,900.

      

Key specs

_ Platform: BlackBerry 10 OS

_ Network bands: Quad band HSPA+ 850/1700/1900/2100 MHz, Quad band EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

_ Processor: 1.5 GHz dual core processor

_ Memory: 2GB RAM

_ Storage: 16 GB on-board memory, swappable microSD card (up to 64 GB)

_ Display: 4.2-inch, 4-point multi-touch IPS LCD with 1280x768 pixel resolution at 356 PPI

_ Camera: 8 MP rear camera, 1080p video recording, 2 MP front camera, 720p video recording

_ Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n

_ Battery life: 1800mAH removable battery, 10 hours talk time on 3G

_ Dimension: 130 x 65.6 x 9mm

_ Weight: 135.4 g