Test BlackBerry Z10 Teil 1: Hardware, Operating System und Usability

Translation and subtitles by Tinus Nel - Tytan Group
Here we have the BlackBerry Z10 - a pre-production model ...
.. that however closely corresponds to the eventual production model.
Here we see the backside is covered in lightly-rippled slip-free material
Here we have an 8 megapixel cameral with an LED flash
On the side we see the volume rocker and in the centre a button with which to activate the voice control.
At the top, we have the on-off switch and the headset jack.
At the bottom, there is really nothing, except for a slot to open it with, ...
.. and on the other side, we have the HDMI - and USB ports.
Let's look at the specs real quickly:
We have a 4,2 inch full touch HD display, ...
.. with a resolution of 1280x768px .
Inside we have a dual-core OMAP4470 processor with 1,5Ghz.
It has 2GB RAM and 16GB storage.
It weighs approximately 125g and has BlackBerry 10 as operating system.
The beauty about BlackBerry 10 is that it is really easy to operate.
It was switched off now, and with a simple upward swipe movement , it is possible to directly get inside again ...
... or in this case, to view the home screen.
Here I can see appointments, the clock, messages that have arrived ....
.. and I have another option. By dragging to the bottom, notifications are switched off, and we have a watch and alarm on the display.
The alarm we can set right here.
By sliding to the top, notifications are activated again.
If I slide to the top again, or if at the outset I slide all the way to the top, I get to the task manager ...
Here we have open apps, in this instance seven in total.
By simply tapping, I can for instance open the browser.
I close it by sliding to the top again
Or Facebook, in this instance.
Just quickly into the browser again ..
The cool part is if you swipe to the top, you see all your notifications here ...
... ten mails, a Twitter message, an SMS and two from Facebook.
If I swipe further to the right, the BlackBerry Hub opens up.
By the way, there are a few pieces of tape stuck to the handset, to hide the serial numbers.
If I swipe to the right again, I can see my notifications in the Hub.
I can for instance choose to view just the text messages, or GMail, or messages that have arrived in Facebook.
Or, in the Hub overview, if I swipe to the bottom, I always see appointments.
Swipe across it, I'm in task manager again ...
and by sliding again, I get to the app pages, which in this instance, consists of three screens ...
.. and where I can, by simply clicking , open any app, for instance DropBox.
which was of course already open.
On the app pages, another gesture is available.
On the app pages, another gesture is available.
If you slide down from here, a window opens at the top where I can choose between private and business mode
In private mode all functions are at my disposal, for instance to share, paste and copy, ...
... and in the business zone I am subject to the rules imposed by my company.
Pulling to the bottom opens up settings menus, for instance Wi-Fi settings, alarm settings, switching Bluetooth on or off ...
... or I can go directly to the settings, and if I want to close the settings window again, I drag it to the top, click on X, and it is gone.
Let's say a message has just arrived and I am in the browser at the time.
If I want to see if it is something important or that I expected, I swipe slightly to the top and to the right ...
...and see here in the preview what has arrived. If it doesn't interest me at the time, I can stay in the browser or app that I was busy with.
What can I do in the Hub? With a long press, for instance, a view of the options appears on the right.
I can for instance, delete the message immediately.
The other possibility is a short tap, which opens the relevant app for the message I want to view, respond to or work with.
So you see, with a few gestures, everything is managed quickly.
There is no need for buttons. At the bottom we have direct links for the camera, which I can close again just like other apps.
There is a search button and we can go directly to the phone
These buttons don't appear in the Hub, but they are there on the app pages.
In the applications themselves, we find these contextual menu buttons relevant to those applications.
If I drag to the bottom now, I don't get the menu as before, but instead settings relevant to the particular app.
To summarize, in Part 1 we dealt with the hardware, design and operation of the BlackBerry Z10
In the next video, Part 2, we will deal with various apps and the voice operation of the device.