The BlackBerry Q20 Classic was among the company’s most recent attempts to secure some extra market presence for their new BB10 platform. And while there was a lot of skepticism preceding the device’s launch, with many believing that BlackBerry have missed their window of relevance, the actual release went a lot smoother than was anticipated.
And even though the Q20 didn’t exactly take over the market by storm, it still managed to establish a solid presence for itself and was quickly recognized for its capabilities. It should be noted, however, that those capabilities were primarily in the phone’s operating system, not that much in its hardware. In fact, some were actually quite critical of what the BlackBerry Q20 offered in terms of technical specifications, as the device was a bit below the market average for its time.
Which, in the context of a non-budget smartphone, obviously drew a lot of criticism and drove some to question the price BlackBerry were asking for the phone. On the other hand, it did come with a very solid release of the BB10 operating system, polishing the experience and making it even more accessible to a wider market segment. In that regard, most reviewers and fans had only positive things to say.
And it’s not like the phone’s hardware was universally panned anyway – some of the device’s physical features actually got quite a lot of praise, such as its keyboard, which was one of the main selling features for the phone. It was indeed a bold – and risky – move for BlackBerry to release a phone with a physical keyboard in a time when everyone is focusing on a good touch screen typing experience, but if anyone could get it right, it was obviously BlackBerry.
After all, the company became known to a large extent for their physical keyboards, a feature that they obviously still know how to develop properly. It should really come as no surprise that people were satisfied with the typing experience on the Q20.
However, several months later, the biggest problem of the device, and its platform as a whole – the lack of apps – remains. BlackBerry have been putting some effort into attracting third-party developers, but it’s been a slow process without that much progress recently. Native support for Android apps helped, but not by much, at least not as much as the company was hoping. So what’s in store for BlackBerry in the future? It’s hard to tell – but right now, it looks like a solid, popular flagship is what the company needs in order to get back on its feet. Could they be planning something in this regard, or are they still evaluating their next move?