I have a BlackBerry Priv, and you have questions. It's time to do the thing!

[Russell Holly]

Russell, I saw your video review and I can't help but ask several questions, mainly about the keyboard

- How does it feel like typing on it?
- How much faster do you think it is to open an app using a keyboard shortcut than searching for it?
- Did you experience any weird performance hiccups when using any BB services?
- Does the keyboard have a satisfying click feel to it?
- Any features that take advantage of the edged display?

I admit, I'm never the type of person who goes gaga over a physical keyboard, but the one on the Priv looks to be one done in exactly the right way.

I love typing on it. It's so comfortable.

It depends on where I am in the interface, but usually exactly the same speed. Just fewer steps.

Yeah, at first BBHub ate my social notifications because I didn't enable it in accessibility, and then I got double notifications between Inbox, Gmail, and BBHub. It could be explained a little better.

It sure does.

The productivity tab takes advantage of the edge, and there's a power meter that wraps around the screen so you can see it when power is connected and the screen is off. Other than that, the curve actually makes the phone more comfortable to hold and use.

 

[zachthebomb13]

I really loved my keyboard on my og droid back in the day, but just accepted that phones were going away from them. This device is really getting me excited again about keyboards. Do you feel like the keyboard (and the phone in general) is good enough for a non business user to want to switch over and use it on a regular basis?

I like that that it is almost stock Android, the front facing speaker, and big battery. Reminds me of my z3 from the past. I just think BlackBerry will be much better than Sony.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

I love typing on it. It's so comfortable.

It depends on where I am in the interface, but usually exactly the same speed. Just fewer steps.

Yeah, at first BBHub ate my social notifications because I didn't enable it in accessibility, and then I got double notifications between Inbox, Gmail, and BBHub. It could be explained a little better.

It sure does.

The productivity tab takes advantage of the edge, and there's a power meter that wraps around the screen so you can see it when power is connected and the screen is off. Other than that, the curve actually makes the phone more comfortable to hold and use.

Looks like I'll be looking at one for sure.

Definitely eager to be using a physical keyboard.

 

[zachthebomb13]

Oh, and maybe a guess on when it'll be available from other carriers. I can use my jump on T-Mobile in four days, and am itching to get rid of my note edge, and the pain that came with it. But, I may be willing to suffer a bit longer for the priv.

 

[Russell Holly]

Oh, and maybe a guess on when it'll be available from other carriers. I can use my jump on T-Mobile in four days, and am itching to get rid of my note edge, and the pain that came with it. But, I may be willing to suffer a bit longer for the priv.

Nothing confirmed, but it's clear the goal is to support as many carriers as possible. AT&T's exclusivity in the US ranges from one month to three, so we'll have to wait and see.

 

[zachthebomb13]

Nothing confirmed, but it's clear the goal is to support as many carriers as possible. AT&T's exclusivity in the US ranges from one month to three, so we'll have to wait and see.

Ugg, hopefully not 3 months. That would be the biggest thing to kill them.

A quick Google search shows very mixed reviews. Some people love it, some hate. It'll be very interesting to get it in people's hands. I feel that people that started off on BlackBerry will be the people that love it. I'm in that camp (Pearl fwiw).

 

[StuartV]

From the AC review:

"when this phone would expect to see Android 6.0, but the closest thing we got to a solid answer was "sometime after the new year.""

Any idea how long it took BB to "harden" Lollipop?

One thing I got from my years as a Crackberryhead was that RIM was 100% consistent in their complete lack of ability to deliver timely and reliable software updates. It was so bad that a "battery pull" was a totally standard thing to do. Compare that to most any current Android phone. The majority of them, you can't do a battery pull if you wanted to. But, BB software was so bad that virtually every single BB user accepted that routine as perfectly normal.

If BB is now taking builds of Android from Google and going through a process to "harden" the build before it then adds its own "enhancements" to the build, what evidence is there that BB will be any better with the timeliness of its updates, and the reliability, than it ever has been in the past? I have no experience with BB10, but I watched the original development and launch of BB10 and it was clearly no better (on timeliness, anyway) than RIM ever was with previous versions of their software. Has anything been SHOWN to be different more recently?

However long it has taken BB to "harden" Lollipop, why would we think it won't take them even longer to harden Marshmallow? I mean, right now they don't have any previous Android devices to support. Which means, they don't have any portion of their Android development team dealing with doing updates/bug fixes/patches on devices that are already out in the field. They could devote the whole team just to getting this new release ready. Now that they have actually just released it, part of their team is going to have be spending some time doing updates/bug fixes/patches to their software that is (now) out in the field. That takes away from the resources they can use hardening Marshmallow and updating their own modifications and applications. So, all things being equal, in their Android development team, getting Marshmallow hardened and ready for release could easily take longer than it took to get Lollipop hardened. The other parts shouldn't take so long. Updating their code that works on Lollipop to work on Marshmallow shouldn't be a huge effort. But, again RIM's history makes me highly skeptical that BB will be anything like as timely as even the other Android OEMs, like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola.

The quote that BB will have an update to Marshmallow "sometime after the new year" should be a huge red flag to anyone who has paid attention to the history of RIM/Blackberry. I've got a dollar that says it won't be released in Q1 of 2016....

 

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Ugg, hopefully not 3 months. That would be the biggest thing to kill them.

A quick Google search shows very mixed reviews. Some people love it, some hate. It'll be very interesting to get it in people's hands. I feel that people that started off on BlackBerry will be the people that love it. I'm in that camp (Pearl fwiw).

Most of the reviewer basically are saying its a phone for lovers of the physically BlackBerry keyboard.....

 

[mavsguy842]

From the AC review:

"when this phone would expect to see Android 6.0, but the closest thing we got to a solid answer was "sometime after the new year.""

Any idea how long it took BB to "harden" Lollipop?

One thing I got from my years as a Crackberryhead was that RIM was 100% consistent in their complete lack of ability to deliver timely and reliable software updates. It was so bad that a "battery pull" was a totally standard thing to do. Compare that to most any current Android phone. The majority of them, you can't do a battery pull if you wanted to. But, BB software was so bad that virtually every single BB user accepted that routine as perfectly normal.

If BB is now taking builds of Android from Google and going through a process to "harden" the build before it then adds its own "enhancements" to the build, what evidence is there that BB will be any better with the timeliness of its updates, and the reliability, than it ever has been in the past? I have no experience with BB10, but I watched the original development and launch of BB10 and it was clearly no better (on timeliness, anyway) than RIM ever was with previous versions of their software. Has anything been SHOWN to be different more recently?

However long it has taken BB to "harden" Lollipop, why would we think it won't take them even longer to harden Marshmallow? I mean, right now they don't have any previous Android devices to support. Which means, they don't have any portion of their Android development team dealing with doing updates/bug fixes/patches on devices that are already out in the field. They could devote the whole team just to getting this new release ready. Now that they have actually just released it, part of their team is going to have be spending some time doing updates/bug fixes/patches to their software that is (now) out in the field. That takes away from the resources they can use hardening Marshmallow and updating their own modifications and applications. So, all things being equal, in their Android development team, getting Marshmallow hardened and ready for release could easily take longer than it took to get Lollipop hardened. The other parts shouldn't take so long. Updating their code that works on Lollipop to work on Marshmallow shouldn't be a huge effort. But, again RIM's history makes me highly skeptical that BB will be anything like as timely as even the other Android OEMs, like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola.

The quote that BB will have an update to Marshmallow "sometime after the new year" should be a huge red flag to anyone who has paid attention to the history of RIM/Blackberry. I've got a dollar that says it won't be released in Q1 of 2016....

BB10 updates actually came pretty quickly (multiples per year), and every BB10 phone they've ever made is still getting the latest updates. It was much much better than the BBOS days.

 

[bananagrams]

I think it's a tough sell for folks who already have a workflow they tolerate. BlackBerry Hub has a lot of positive features to it if you want everything in one place organized the way BlackBerry thinks is best. I really dig it as a social aggregate, but as a Google Inbox user I'm probably never going to use Hub for email. The way Google organizes email as a ToDo list works for me in ways nothing else has ever worked.

I am far from the standard though, and I think Hub is probably better than Gmail and Outlook, so it's likely we'll see a lot of people giving it a shot and liking it.

Hub goes beyond email. Therefore GMail and Outlook can never really compare. That's what android users don't get. How can you not want a central inbox for everything?

Can you go further into your explanation on the interaction with other applications such as instagram, facebook, vine, etc on the hub? Can the hub be filtered by email account, type of notification, etc? Can you compare the differences of hub implementation with BB10?

 

[ahmedhanif911]

So is it possible to do a universal search from home screen by the keyboard, or do you always have to swipe up and to the left to access it?

Posted via the Android Central App on my LG G4

 

[Russell Holly]

Hub goes beyond email. Therefore GMail and Outlook can never really compare. That's what android users don't get. How can you not want a central inbox for everything?

Can you go further into your explanation on the interaction with other applications such as instagram, facebook, vine, etc on the hub? Can the hub be filtered by email account, type of notification, etc? Can you compare the differences of hub implementation with BB10?

I have a central inbox for everything, it's called the Notification Tray.

 

[Russell Holly]

So is it possible to do a universal search from home screen by the keyboard, or do you always have to swipe up and to the left to access it?

Posted via the Android Central App on my LG G4

you just start typing, and you can choose between device search and Google Now for what handles the input

 

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Hub goes beyond email. Therefore GMail and Outlook can never really compare. That's what android users don't get. How can you not want a central inbox for everything?

Can you go further into your explanation on the interaction with other applications such as instagram, facebook, vine, etc on the hub? Can the hub be filtered by email account, type of notification, etc? Can you compare the differences of hub implementation with BB10?

As Russell said... people like what they are use to.

But also, HUB on the PRIV is not the same fully integrated experience it is on BB10.

 

[ruhban]

What are notifications like? Have they been able to change them? Or are they standard Android (remind me what those are like again)?

LED notifications - what are those like? Classic BlackBerry style? Or not?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Russell Holly]

What are notifications like? Have they been able to change them? Or are they standard Android (remind me what those are like again)?

LED notifications - what are those like? Classic BlackBerry style? Or not?

Posted via the Android Central App

In a way, you have everything. The Android Ambient Display will show notifications on the lock screen if you allow it, there's an LED light for notifications, and the standard Android notification tray is set up as a catch all.

 

[bananagrams]

I have a central inbox for everything, it's called the Notification Tray.

Some similarities between the two, but not the same still.

Notification tray. by definition is for notifications. Sure, you can do some quick actions on the notifications. But what if you dismiss the notification to be dealt with later? Where do you go that has an aggregate of all the items that have come in that you may have deferred? each individual app? If that's the case, you may easily forget about some things that you want or intend to do.

I'm not being difficult, I'm looking for an explanation or alternative to Hub and it's functionality because I genuinely want to know:
a) how the interaction is based on the android implementation, and
b) if android users just have to "live" with no aggregate inbox where things are stored for either latr use or reference

I have a Nexus 7, and maybe I'm not using it right, but I cannot be productive or organized at all with it. I only use it for games pretty much. I reach for my BB when I need to get **** done. sounds cliche, but there it is. I'm struggling to find out how a transition to android can be as painless as possible

 

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Some similarities between the two, but not the same still.

Notification tray. by definition is for notifications. Sure, you can do some quick actions on the notifications. But what if you dismiss the notification to be dealt with later? Where do you go that has an aggregate of all the items that have come in that you may have deferred? each individual app? If that's the case, you may easily forget about some things that you want or intend to do.

I'm not being difficult, I'm looking for an explanation or alternative to Hub and it's functionality because I genuinely want to know:
a) how the interaction is based on the android implementation, and
b) if android users just have to "live" with no aggregate inbox where things are stored for either latr use or reference

I have a Nexus 7, and maybe I'm not using it right, but I cannot be productive or organized at all with it. I only use it for games pretty much. I reach for my BB when I need to get **** done. sounds cliche, but there it is. I'm struggling to find out how a transition to android can be as painless as possible

You do know this is an Android site? They probable don't have a clue what you are talking about in regards to the HUB and how it works on BB10 (well I'm sure Russell knows a little). I think you answer is best going to be answered over on CrackBerry for now.

But I think you need to keep in mind that plenty of Android users are able to be productive and organized... without any help from BlackBerry. They just do it differently.

 

[StuartV]

BB10 updates actually came pretty quickly (multiples per year), and every BB10 phone they've ever made is still getting the latest updates. It was much much better than the BBOS days.

That's good to hear! I loved my Crackberrys when I had them. It will still be interesting to see how quickly BB gets new versions of Android OS out to existing phones.

 

[Quot46]

Can you enable installation of apps from unknown sources? I have a ton of games from HumbleBundle and if I can't install apps from outside of Google Play that's a big problem.