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Reviews (2)
22 June 2016
Android holds it back
7 of 9 found this helpful Having previously owned a BlackBerry OS 10 phone, this one actually let me down some. But it's not actually the phone's problem, but actually the operating system it uses. The Android OS is a mess. At least compared to BB10.
The best part of BB10 was the HUB. Hands down, it's the best innovative piece of software around for handling any kind of communication. You had facebook, whatsapp, linkedin, all your different e-mail boxes, SMS's, phone update notification, all in this one handy view, which you could filter to only see what you wanted to see. And on top of that, you could read and reply via the HUB and you didn't need to open a 3rd party app to do anything. Now in this Priv, I only get some of those messages and notifications to the HUB. I hope the support for further apps will go up in the future. For those that don't exist there, I still have to open their own respective app to be able to communicate. With facebook this becomes a pain, because AFAIK, the only way to chat there is to install the messaging app of theirs. And that pretty much wants all privileges it can get. Probably would draw blood from me and send it back to Facebook if it could.
The edge feature is as useless as I expected. The Priv has some odd quick view tab you can pull to view from the side, but frankly I've never understood its purpose. Perhaps if I used the calendar more at work, I might have use for it. Secondly the curved edge works to your disadvantage when you are holding the phone. To be able to hold a phone, at I at least have to hold it in my hand, surrounding the edges so not to drop it. This causes the palm of my thumb or my fingertips to actually touch the screen on the sides. This is also recognized as a touch event in apps and games. I mean...that's just poor usability.
The keyboard is a huge help, which is why I bought this in the first place. No more misses when typing. But I only give it the half point it deserves. The keyboard should be placed on the long side in landscape mode. Now they are so close together, that it's impossible to type without constantly looking at them. The touch feature on the buttons was a nice touch. I use it mainly to adjust the exposure when taking photos. To actually use it for letter selection while typing is impossible. When holding down the letter 'a' for example, you get a preview of all the non-english 'a' letters you can select from (äåá etc.), but when beginning to swipe, you have to first move your finger a centimeter or two to actually start moving the selector. But then when it moves, you have to pin point the exact letter within the next centimeter or two, and there are 10 letters to choose from. In practice, I raise my finger up and select it on the touch screen.
To review the camera and performance of the CPU and RAM is pointless. Those view are subjective and I have not much to compare to. They all outperform my older BlackBerry Z10 from a few years back.
17 November 2020
For teaching purposes
Great at teaching our 7 year old how long to wash her hands!