blackberry
#BB10 v. #Priv: The Struggle Within
Last Friday wasn’t just November 6th. It was BlackBerry #Priv Day.. believe it or not (and I am not sure if I should admit it) leading up to this day I was both excited and anxiety stricken ! I want the #Android #Priv to do well because first and foremost I support BlackBerry the company.
The excitement of course was over all the buzz the #Priv was generating on friday. My twitter timeline was practically all #Priv, all the time. Instagram was showing some #Priv love as well. I am not big on Facebook but I imagine some action happened there as well. Magically, like mushroom sprouting, you had all kinds of reviews pop up. Mostly favorable but some not so much. There’s no doubt that at times, as fanboys, we’ll refuse to see accept or acknowledge things.. It’s I guess par for the course… but these reviewers that panned the #Priv, you can tell they just live to hate on things. It’s basically what they live for. I wonder how many of them actually spent significant or quality time with the device.
Anyway, I digress. Where was I. Ok, so why the ‘struggle within’… well, where the fuck was all this effort for when the BlackBerry 10 came out? Where was this love then? I realize it’s easy to be that armchair critic but seriously why couldn’t this effort be done as well for bb10 ? So there you have it. That’s the struggle. Happy for what appears to be a successful launch of the #Priv but pissed that BB10 wasn’t shown the same love.
Over the weekend I got to play with a #Priv for about 15mins at a local Rogers store. I will tell you, the fact they had a working BlackBerry device of any kind was a miracle and refreshing. The 15mins I spent weren’t much but they were 15 great minutes. The device in hand.. well it’s unmistakably BlackBerry. What quality. BlackBerry makes the best phones. Period. The performance was fantastic. Navigation easy enough to get used to. It didn’t hurt that I watched all sorts of videos leading up to this… the one thing that I still can’t bring myself to like. The android UI. I don’t like it one bit. Anyway having written all this, I will not purchase a #Priv. I am a die-hard BlackBerryer.. and until I have no other choice I remain a BB10er. I don’t cave in like some folk.
#TeamBlackBerry #TeamBB10
Brand Loyalty #iChooseBlackBerry
I recently read a blog post on brand loyalty. It was, as all blog posts are, an opinion piece. As such, you can certainly agree or disagree but you cannot determine that the article is incorrect because it’s someone’s opinion and everyone has a right to one. The gist of the post was that being loyal to one brand makes you a slave to the brand as opposed to being open to other brands puts the control back in your lap… Ok sure.. or maybe it just makes you a slave to many… and a very tired one at that! Lol.
I’m not a slave to anyone. Certainly I am no slave to BlackBerry. #iChooseBlackBerry because I want to. Nobody held a gun to my head and certainly I don’t do it because I am a blind follower.
My love for BlackBerry started, truth be told, in a very superficial way. I saw the #bold #9900 and fell in love with the look. Yes, I was and still am superficial that way. I can safely (and correctly) write that BlackBerry phones are the best looking phones out there. Hands down. Added to their great look is the quality behind it. Give me a BlackBerry phone that didn’t or doesn’t ooze quality. You’d be very hard pressed to find one.
I’m not going to invest any time writing about the OS in great detail… I think like any OS out there it has its pros and cons… but I can say through experience that transitioning from OS7 to BB10 for me was not at all traumatic or difficult. I think the BB10 OS is very intuitive and the flow is amazing. Any person saying otherwise didn’t give the OS a chance. impossible.
So being that I am loyal to BlackBerry does it mean that I am missing out on anything? Why not open my eyes to other OSs? Am I afraid that if I try another platform I may like it more? Well, I am not too worried about that. I get to experience first hand the #iPhone because my daughter has one. She is the only one in our household that isn’t BlackBerry.. and no, I haven’t disowned her ;). There is nothing about the phone or the OS that intrigues me. I also have friends that are android users and so I have played with the phones and granted not for long #Android too doesn’t intrigue me much. The other major issue with #Android that gets to me is that I just don’t like the interface. I just don’t find it nice and I also don’t find that it flows nicely. I find it hard to navigate. In fairness though my opinion of android is based on very little hands on time and a lot of video watching. Therefore I don’t know for sure if i’d take to it if I spent quality time with it. So now that begs the question… since I am a BlackBerry supporter first and foremost.. if BB10 goes away will I go iOS or Android? Today I am still in the camp that believes that BB10 isn’t going anywhere. I will continue to ride the BB10 ride. If at some point in the future BlackBerry takes a different path and decides BB10 will go away then because I am a BlackBerry guy, I will in fact choose #Android but an #Android that is produced by BlackBerry. Why? Because #iChooseBlackBerry. Plain and simple.
The BackBerry Slider: Ohhhh the emotions!!!
I will start off my post by writing that I am a hard-core blackberry guy. Hard core. I should add that I am a huge fan of the keyboard variants of the BlackBerry. I fell in love with BlackBerry when I first laid my eyes on the #bold #9900. Love at first sight.
This BlackBerry #slider though. My god… the emotions it has evoked with the community is unbelievable. On the one hand it’s fantastic because it keeps BlackBerry in the news and this time quite frankly for all the right reasons… as opposed to being trashed all the time as it was not too long ago. On the other hand it also brings out the nonsense as well.
Since the early days of rumors and leaks it has gone from photoshop, android runtime, hybrid, dual, and full fledged android. The recent leaks show nothing but #android. So as someone tweeted a while back if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a duck.. Some in the BlackBerry community are coming to terms with this and atleast try to reason out why this has to happen… others in the BlackBerry community are beside themselves and sound like the world is coming to an end. Like ‘where is the closest bridge so I can just jump off’ kinda reaction. Two extremes it seems.. nothing in-between. You then have these bloggers that fuel the fire with catch tag lines or whatever just to get traffic going on their site… which is pathetic.. all these bloggers that seem to be ‘in the know’ I think just know zero. just the other day I watched a couple of videos.. I won’t name names but one guy goes on about how BlackBerry abandoned their loyal fanbase and that just because it says BlackBerry on the phone it doesn’t make it a BlackBerry. That it’s an android, period. He went on with some tweets as well that BlackBerry must really be doing bad financially if they had to go to another OS to try to survive.. a company making acquisitions clearly is not doing well financially. Makes sense. The issue with this guy is that he seems to go where the wind blows.. says or tweets things just to stir shit.. he’s entitled to his opinion but I think he knows very little. The other video I watched was atleast done with some intelligence. I’ll leave it at that because there really isn’t much to add to it.
Anyway, so is it a BlackBerry Android or an Android BlackBerry ? Who the hell cares?
I won’t go on any rant but here’s my ‘Joe dirt’ take on this. BlackBerry is a company. It’s a business. John Chen needs to look at the big picture… and there IS a bigger picture..I think he’s 2 steps ahead of everyone else with his thinking. Anyone not realizing that is being short sighted. I find It incredibly hard to believe that this man will abandon the loyal hard core fanbase.. that he will abandon BB10 for just android. It doesn’t make sense at all. There have been a few times when I thought that there could be some trolling as well included in all this ‘vision’. Lol…
Is Chen counting on the android #Slider to do well? Yes he is. Will it do well? Based on the frenzy it has caused online thus far I will say a resounding YES!!! I mean for god’s sake people are salivating over it. That’s great news for BlackBerry. Will I buy one? no. I am not a fan of android. Do I think BB10 is dead? No it’s not. Funny enough I saw some recent tweets out there with supposed specs showing #Venice running 10.4 or a flavor of 10.3.2. More fiction? Who knows. What I do know is that I can’t wait for November when this #slider makes its presence not because I want one but rather because once and for all we can all move on with our lives :). In the meantime as I continue to watch this story unfold mainly on twitter and certain blogs I follow it amazes me to see the diversity. You have those that continue to keep it classy and then you have the others. I know that twitter only allows for 140 chars but it grinds my gears when certain folk (and you know who you are) tweet out some vague tease just so they can get a reaction. Sad. Pretty desperate for attention eh? In the end support whatever platform you want. We are all entitled but for the love of Jesus show some conviction and stick to something.. choose a side… and hey if one day you feel the other side of the fence looks better go for IT but don’t shit on the side you originally were on.
#teamblackberry #classic #blackberryrocks #blackberry #slider #BB104ever
What people think of BlackBerry users…
Another great video by local boy @J_Caloy
I love my BlackBerry #Classic but the #Passport is pretty cool and innovative !
#Fosmon vs. #Inskin Screen Protector Review
I am a proud owner of a BlackBerry #Classic and as such I need to protect ‘my precious’… as is the case no matter what phone I purchase (always @BlackBerry) I protect it with a case and a screen protector. Back in November 2014 I was looking for a screen protector on amazon and came across the #Fosmon anti glare/anti smudge protector.. I am pretty picky when it comes to smudges.. and the price; $3.00 was almost too good to be true.. but I went ahead and ordered it. This past month while looking at another screen protector I came across #inskin tempered glass protector unlike #Fosmon they don’t offer anti glare/anti smudge (at the moment) but I went ahead and bought even with the $11.00 price tag on it.
Obviously it’s not really fair to compare apples and oranges… one is anti glare/anti smudge, one isn’t but both offer their pros and cons
#Fosmon
The good
1) the price; a pack of 3 for $3.00
2) I could not believe how easily I was able to install it and NO AIR/LINT BUBBLES!
3) true to their word the anti glare and anti smudge was fantastic
4) given its thinness it didn’t create any obstruction with my 2 piece phone case
The not so good
1) the one ‘glaring’ 😉 issue which in the end really isn’t because the product does what it claims to do is that you lose the sharpness of the screen colors that your phone offers. You don’t get to appreciate those colors and sharpness.
#Inskin
The good
1) no doubt the fact that you get to enjoy the sharpness of your phone colors given this protector isn’t antiglare.. I missed that.
The not so good
1) THE SMUDGES!!! I am so disturbed by this.. I am incredibly picky when it comes to this… and somehow and I don’t know how there is a streak going right down the middle of the protector. I was very meticulous when I cleaned off the screen before applying the protector.. meticulous I tell you.. and yet this streak can be rubbed off but it just keeps coming back. Like a nightmare..can u see it? #serenitynow
I paid good money for this protector so there is no way that I will replace this protector any time soon… so i will have to suffer through constantly wiping out this streak over and over and over again.. Btw I tried using dish washing soap and rubbing alcohol.. helps momentarily.
2) I was not able escape the dreaded air/lint bubble. Can u see it?
3) the protector isn’t as thin as the #Fosmon one so it kinda obstructs when putting on the phone case..its not though the end of the world.
The winner?? Well if I pretend that the streak in the middle of the #Inskin isn’t there I would rather live with having to remove the smudges so that I can enjoy the sharpness that the #Classic screen offers. That’s how I feel at the moment.. who knows it could change in time.
So there it is.. my ‘Joe Dirt’ kind of review… again, the two protectors serve 2 different purposes but still worth a comparison.
Ryan Seacrest drops $1 million into iPhone keyboard when he could just use a BlackBerry instead | CrackBerry.com
Rich people problems…what a waste of money!!! hello? #Q10 anyone???
Report on tech trends across Canada reveals Albertans buy the most gadgets – Yahoo News Canada
Report on tech trends across Canada reveals Albertans buy the most gadgets – Yahoo News Canada.
I am one of those faithful blackberry users :)!
One month and a half with my Q10
So it’s been a little over a month since I got my blackberry Q10 and I figured it was time I wrote about what I think of it. In case I haven’t really made it obvious by some of my past posts I am a true blackberry fanboy. I have been a fan since I first laid eyes on one but couldn’t afford it ;).. my first blackberry was a bold 9000 then I went to the bold 9900. I am huge on a keypad… have to have one. I love the feel and the clicking noise, Damn it I just love the clicking. Lol. I am also a pro at typing. A pro, I tell you. I thought that the keypad on the 9000 was fantastic, then came the 9900 and I was in love and now the Q10.. well I am in love all over again. The look and feel of this keypad is amazing!!! Notice how I start with the keypad… it’s all about the keypad. Did I mention that it’s all about the keypad! Lol. The phone itself is great looking. Losing the track pad was not a big deal at all. I really love the form factor of the phone. Of course, the added real estate gained by the removal of the track pad area does a lot of good.
I follow a significant amount of blogs dedicated to the blackberry. Mostly I spend my time on crackberry.com and I do spend a lot of time reading the comments made by users as well as the reviews that are out there. I must say that it’s so frustrating to read ‘reviews’ of the phone done based on hours or maybe a day or two of phone use. How can you really review a phone spending so little time on it? You need to spend quality time using the phone, any phone, before you can really decide if it’s for you or not. You need to use it in the ‘real world’, you need to use it often. I consider myself a power user.. for one, I am addicted to it so by default that makes me a power user ;). I think that I should mention that I don’t consider myself a gamer.. I mean I do enjoy playing games but when I do play, it would not be on a phone.. it’s either on a tablet or console.. that’s it.. so I don’t look at gaming as a criteria for a phone.
Am I upset that #netflix doesn’t have an app for BB10? Yes, I’m upset that they are being stubborn and silly about it.. personally I don’t care.. I don’t see myself watching a movie on the #Q10 but hell if they decide to create an app then of course I will get it. Am I upset that #instagram does not have a native app for BB10? Not really. We live in a world of way too many duck lip selfies… we don’t need another person added to the list; namely me. The haters complain that there aren’t enough apps.. how many apps does one really need? Is it important to have 1million apps when you will only use or install a fraction of these apps? Such a weak argument for one and secondly you can start to see that even those who created apps for the other platforms are starting to see the benefits to coming to #BB10.
Any blackberry user coming from OS5,6 or 7 will be floored by the difference. It’s night and day different. The speed, no more hourglass, no more reboots on app installs. For anyone coming from another platform they will be greeted with the same type of performance. There is no doubt in my mind..it’s just my gut here because I have not used any other smartphone but a blackberry.
There are several things I like about this new OS and experience. The fact that everything is gesture based is amazing. The gestures themselves are very simple and easy to remember. Anyone finding the gestures complicated …well… I am afraid then you are not too bright. The best thing about BB10 is the #hub… having everything consolidated in one place is amazing. honestly, I can get everything done thru the hub. I really don’t need to be running the apps individually. Another thing I like is the ‘instant action’ functionality… wanna email someone, type ’email’ + name and voila… wanna text someone, type ‘text’ + name and there u go… wanna tweet, type ‘tweet’ + whatever and bam u’ve tweeted… efficiency and productivity, that’s what it’s all about. It’s like their commercial… keep moving forward!! Last but not least I should mention the battery… battery life is amazing. When I had my bold i’d always be in a panic when it got down to 20% or less because it would drain super fast. Now, not a worry in the world. For one, the battery life is very good to begin with, secondly I could bring it down to its very last breath without having to scramble for my charger.
There are a lot more great features I can get into but for me, right now, a month later the above mentioned are by far what has me impressed.
Now having written this, not everything is rosey. It is a new OS after all and you have to expect some little quirks. There are times when apps like twitter and facebook stop refreshing… the feeds just stop coming in and only closing and re-launching gets things going again. Now is this an issue with the app itself or the OS or a bit of both? I don’t know. I tend to lean toward it being an app issue. There are times that yes, a reboot of the phone clears up some ‘issues’… but that is very rare. A couple of times I have seen an app crash and disappear on me… again, hasn’t happened often…There are also times when for whatever reason my gmail accounts gets disconnected.. Are any of these show stoppers for me? Absolutely not. That would be petty.
So there you have it; my #Q10 review… all in all I am very impressed with the BB10 platform, the #Q10 phone itself and I am looking forward to seeing where #blackberry is heading.
PS: i wrote up this post on … u guessed it… my #Q10
My Random Thoughts 