It’s been a rough last time for BlackBerry these last few years, as the company has been struggling to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving smartphone market. The story is widely known by this point – the company relied too heavily on its business customers on one hand, neglecting the consumer market; and on the other, they refused to roll with the innovations introduced by other companies, which significantly changed the way users saw a smartphone. And while they did make an attempt to remedy both mistakes by releasing the BlackBerry Z10 a few years ago, some critics were claiming that it was already too late.
The company didn’t give up, however, and they actually started trying to experiment with new ideas and innovate the market in places where others haven’t thought to. The BlackBerry Passport is a peculiar-looking device, and according to reports and customer reviews, it may very well be the next big step in BlackBerry’s revival.
One of the main “features” of the passport is its screen. Having a square shape and resolution, it’s a departure from the 16:10/16:9 screens used in most smartphones today, and according to BlackBerry, it’s a much more comfortable design for reading documents and browsing the Internet. While some were skeptical at those claims at first, reviewers were mostly unanimous in their views that the screen definitely does change things for the better.
The Passport also marks a return to physical keyboards, something which BlackBerry were known for before. The device actually features a special type of keyboard which not only has physical buttons, but also touch sensors. Users can scroll along the keyboard for navigation, as well as use it to interact with the operating system in various other ways. All in all, it’s a system that might take some getting used to, but once a user has learned it, it can significantly boost productivity when working with the system.
The only downside of the BlackBerry Passport, according to pretty much everyone, is the exact same old problem that the company has had with its previous recent releases – the app market. While many essential apps have their own BB10 versions, not all are there, and in the cases of some apps, the developers haven’t even given any indication that they’re planning a port. The device does support running Android apps natively, but that’s a feature not many users are going to be interested in, plus there have been reports of compatibility issues with certain apps. It seems that BlackBerry have finally realized what they should be doing, and are moving in the right direction – it would be really interesting to follow the company’s progress in the coming months and see what else they can come up with.