Speaking of the sort, yes, I've got a few. Once again, we've got BlackBerry's business-friendly mantra to thank here small as the display is, there's still enough space to get you thumbing through emails and tweets without too many complaints. It's certainly not the most pixel-dense screen you'll encounter, which is slightly tragic since the Passport squeezes four times as many active pixels into a screen that's only an inch bigger diagonally. Is it going to do much good for anyone who isn't seriously finicky? Maybe not, but I couldn't help but dial down the default warmth level a touch anyway. BlackBerry was kind enough to let you tweak the screen's white balance right from the settings, something that just about every other smartphone maker out there is loath to do. Display and soundīeyond the obvious Huey Lewis joke, there isn't a lot to be said about the Classic's 3.5-inch square screen it's bright enough to use in direct sunlight, and colors are plenty vivid, too. It would've been nice if the company had transplanted some of that sweet, sweet gesture-tracking tech we saw in the Passport into the Classic, but "newfangled" isn't the name of the game here. And after that? I wouldn't quite call it typing nirvana, but there's a comforting amount of travel and a satisfying click to those keys. If you've never picked up a BlackBerry before, the size and density of these keys will take some time to get used to it took three or four days before muscle memory kicked in and I could peck out messages with something approaching the fury I used to have. The Classic has a pretty standard four-row affair, with all your letters, numbers and punctuation crammed into the top three rows leaving the space bar and Symbol keys (remember those?) all by themselves. I've always been fond of retro devices like the BlackBerry Tour 9630, a phone whose tiny QWERTY keys got me through at least one college paper dissecting some long-dead poets and a failed relationship or two. BlackBerry has spent more than two years refining the way BB10 works with a touchscreen, adding gestures that feel natural and replace the Menu key almost entirely.Īnd then there's the keyboard. The rest of the tool belt is as straightforward as it is functional, with only the Menu button coming off like a relic. If anything, it almost makes more sense as a supplement to a touchscreen than a means of navigation unto itself. You can use it for grander gestures too, like scrolling through a story, but in those cases it never feels quite as comfortable swiping a thumb down a glass touchscreen (Gorilla Glass 3, in this case). For such minute operations, the trackpad is just lovely. In case it wasn't apparent, the Classic's tiny black nub helps you ably home in on teensy links and subtly nudge the cursor between letters so you can polish off that witty Twitter retort. After a few days, my tune started to change, if only a little. And you know what? I didn't miss them at all, or so I thought. It's been years since I've seen an optical trackpad on a smartphone, let alone used one in lieu of a touchscreen to get stuff done. Rounding out the facade is a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera lodged above the 3.5-inch square 720p screen.īelow all that lies the affectionately named "tool belt," bringing along dedicated Call, End, Menu and Back buttons. It's even got a notification light to pulse at you whenever an email lands in your inbox to complete the historic look. And the front? It's just the sort of blast from the past I expected here. On the opposite edge, there's a pair of volume buttons separated by a key dedicated to launching the digital assistant (more on that later). Itching to pop in a SIM or a microSD card? Hope you've got a paper clip handy you'll need one to access the pair of trays along the phone's left side. No, its dimpled back plate is affixed to the chassis, so all you'll be able to do with it is finger the chrome BlackBerry logo and gaze at the 8-megapixel camera and LED flash running across the top of the Classic's backside. One thing the Classic doesn't share with its old-school comrades is the ability to pop off the rear cover for a foolproof restart or a handy battery swap. The Classic is dense and solidly constructed, as if to declare - loudly - that it's more of a tool than a toy. Even the venerable Curves and Pearls of yore skewed toward the lighter, plasticky end of the spectrum. Historically, BlackBerry has been uneven when it came to build quality: For every tank the company put out, there was one that was unsatisfyingly light.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |