Hyderabad: That great American humorist, Mark Twain, was in England to cover Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1897, when he learned that a New York newspaper had carried his obituary. He then sent a wry message to his own paper: “The report of my death is an exaggeration!”
For many months now, the media has been predicting the imminent demise of Blackberry, whose phone-cum-messenger became one of the most iconic communication products of this century. But Blackberry is refusing to die. Last year, it moved beyond the classic Blackberry keyboard to launch a touch phone — the Z 10. It followed this with the Z30 — another touch phone but costing over twice as much.
Now it has come back with the Z3, which at Rs 15,999 is priced at exactly what the Z10 costs but with much better specs. It was launched in Indonesia and Africa before coming to India and is clearly Blackberry’s shot across the bows of competing value smartphones. So, what does it have going for it? Blackberry’s agni astra of course, is BBM or Blackberry Messenger, still the most secure form of communication, albeit now optional.
But for the touch phones, they created a Hub where you can get almost every important function of the phone in a single view. The phone works with intuitive gestures — swiping down brings up your personal shortcuts, swiping up exits an app; swiping up and to the right takes you to the Hub. I must admit to a few false starts — the gestures take some getting used to. Hardcore classic Blackberry users who swear by those tiny keys, may rebel at having to use a soft keyboard.
At five inches, the phone is not a phablet. The two cameras — 5 megapixel and 1.1 megapixel are fairly standard. But I enjoyed the Time Shift feature which allowed me to chose the best still photo from a quick burst. 1.5 GB of RAM is fine but just 8 GB of storage is theek hai. Ditto for the 540 by 960 pixel screen which is just shy of a 720p HD. One cool feature is the Hinglish capability: the keyboard is a fast learner and will soon be second-guessing you. Working on the latest BB10.2.1 OS, the browser seemed fast.
More importantly, we Indians are price conscious — but I think the combo of the Blackberry name and the newest gesture-and-touch controls will seem like good value.
