I’ve dropped the codename “Vienna” before on our weekly podcast and in the forums, but these renders are the first real look we’ve had at the design. Vienna ditches the Priv’s slider in favor of the iconic BlackBerry layout, with a front-facing physical keyboard that is always present. The keyboard looks to be of the same size and design as that of the Priv’s, but it’s hard to tell simply based off of the renders alone.
They’re really going all-in on building Android devices with physical keyboards, and you know what? In this mobile landscape of boring sameness and nothingness, these devices are a huge breath of fresh air.
Successful or no, good work. Now all we need is a horizontal slider!
Looks good. It’s the phone I wanted the Q10 successor to be. Last Android phone with a physical keyboard I had was the Samsung Galaxy Ch@t, with 4.1 I believe, and it was slow as shit. Let’s hope BlackBerry makes it with decent specs.
So this basically means you cannot use the device in landscape mode which is the way I use the kind of programs that require a keyboard the most.
At this moment the only thing it is really good for would be texting
This thing better be cheap…but it won’t be.
It is designed for corporate and government use. In that user space email is critical and price is irrelevant.
Edited 2015-11-17 08:33 UTC
In that user space, Blackberry is now irrelevant.
You have to be kidding. Many organisations (particularly governments) only allow Blackberry or Blackphone 2 for key personnel.
Saying “many organisations” without any source or number means nothing. Every company that I worked for and used BlackBerries exclusively in 2010 now
a) are mostly BYOD with iPhones for management
b) or hand out mid-market (200 Euro) phones at best
Lol – sorry unclefester, I’m not kidding.
But please, feel free to outline who these “Many organisations (particularly governments)” are, that “only allow Blackberry or Blackphone 2 for key personnel.”
You can then subtract that number from the rest of the planet (including organisations and governments), and what you’ll be left with is everyone who won’t be buying this or any other Blackberry handset.
Which is basically everyone.
Here’s a little anecdote for you – I have an old friend who works in IT support for a directorate with the Department of Defence in Canberra. Whilst staff are free to use their own handsets, if they want one paid for by the directorate, they have to use a Blackberry. Out of a total of just over 300 staff, the total rollout of Blackberry handsets is currently 4 – and one of these is kept within the IT department for ‘testing’.
BlackBerry put up a “5 million devices per year” target for themselves. They are not going to make that with “key personel” or “government” when there is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry#Phones_with_BlackBerry_emai…
(the market for mobile government workers with provided phones is tiny now. Almost all government workers have desk jobs)
LMAO. Wait, you’re serious?
Oh you know it won’t be cheap – much like the Privy before it, Blackberry will factor low sales volumes for this thing into it’s initial pricing. That said, you’ll be able to pick them up pretty cheaply both secondhand and new within six months of release
it depends if this is the low end model compared to the Priv. Same way as with the Leap. hit £300 and I’ll maybe get one. Get it down to £200 (and compete with the Motto G) and I’ll be an owner in a heartbeat.
Or anything else involving writing. The screen size isn’t given, but presumably it’s big enough to where you can read what you’re writing in portrait mode. In the last few months I’ve written over 20,000 words on my iPhone 6+ in portrait. I can’t imagine trying to type out anything significant in landscape. My thumbs aren’t nearly long enough for that to be quick or comfortable. In any case, the more spaced out the keys are, the longer it’s going to take for your thumbs to reach. In portrait, 60wpm is not so hard, either with an old school blackberry or with a good software keyboard.
In landscape I can see my folders/list on the left 25% and my emails on the right.
In landscape I can also use my left hand for Special Characters, Shift and Auto-Complete while I am swiping with my right index finger. 60 wpm seems about my speed and I am quite slow because I constantly alternate between Dutch and English…and because I think while writing. I will write a short, one-handed message in portrait but anything substantial in landscape
I like landscape mode too because I sometimes spend 10 minutes sending family members messages on google hangouts but blackberry are targeting the ‘corporate business’ instead of the general user.
Different audiences have different preferences. Business users basically only need to be able to quickly reply to phone calls and basic short messages. A physical keyboard that gives the “classic phone look” is a more attractive option for that audience than a popup onscreen keyboard or landscape mode.
Edit: Kinda like the nokia E71 in the past.
Edited 2015-11-18 07:49 UTC
I have handled I think around 10 different BlackBerry models from various times, and I can tell from my personal experience, that BlackBerry has made SOME really high quality, reliable and overall great phones — most of them in prestigious “BlackBerry Bold” lineup — but all the rest is crap. Bold 9780 is one example of their excellence, yet Bold 9790 already feels cheap and flimsy in comparison, with poorer battery life. Most of BlackBerry Curves are cheap shit and falls apart quickly, but again, there are some that were not that bad…
What I am trying to say, is that these attempts with Priv and Vienna look like once again they are shooting in the dark — maybe they get it right, maybe not… They themselves have no idea.
I think I’ve become too accustomed to software based keyboards, that the thought of going back to hardware keyboards on a phone just don’t appeal to me anymore.
I like the way a software keyboard is context based. Filling out a form and the field is a phone number? Keyboard changes to all numbers. It’s an email address? Changes over to include @ symbol and even a dedicated .com button. Even better, when I use some language learning apps and the keyboard changes to include the special characters from that language. Not to mention emoji keyboards or the nice Swype keyboards.
I guess with a hardware based keyboard you’d have to switch between it and onscreen touch based options to handle all those scenarios.
It does if the app supports it. I’ve found on both iOS and Android that many app publishers seem to forget about such things.
Preach it brother! Oh how I miss the keyboards on Motorola’s Cliq and Photon Q. Motorola, like BlackBerry, really knew how to make a great mobile keyboard.
Yes, please, someone, anyone, bring back the horizontal slider keyboard … in a phone with decent internal hardware!!
I hated how all the phones with hardware keyboards had 1-3 generations old hardware inside compared to the “flagship” phones without keyboards. And then carriers/makers wondered why no one bought the phones with keyboards!