BlackBerry not quite my type

27 March 2013 - 03:14 By TJ Strydom
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It is slick, black and has a comfortable feel in your hand. It's the maker's first go at a full touchscreen and it works much better than those half-touch, half-keyboard hybrids BlackBerry users have had to stomach.

The Z10's screen is excellent - very responsive and well suited to quick thumb-typing, web browsing and tapping to take pictures.

And it has a great camera function, 8 megapixels on the back of the phone, 3 megapixels on the front, so, when you have the connectivity, videocalls are quite good.

Taking photos is a pleasure and there are some cool filters that come standard, so you can get the Instagram effect without Instagram.

But that is where my love affair with the Z10 ends.

WhatsApp - the first stop for texting - was not yet available in BlackBerry World when I used the phone. BlackBerry World is the company's new app store, but the number and quality of apps falls far short of what you can get for Android and Apple devices.

And what is supposed to be one of the Z10's best features - intelligent predictive text and flick-typing - can be extremely frustrating. It should make typing quicker, but because flicking your thumb both minimises windows or selects full words, the two sometimes get mixed up and you often exit the app you're working in., which breaks your speed completely. Urgh.

It's not a bad phone. If you get a great deal, take it. But don't expect to impress anyone with it.

  • The BlackBerry Z10 is available locally and retails for R7000 on pre-paid
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