Blackberry Priv Reviews Are In; Mixed Reactions From Users, Cost Not In Line With Performance?
The reviews for BlackBerry Priv, which is the company's first android smartphone, has been released and it seems that reactions from tech geeks have varied alot.
The company, for years now, has been announced to be struggling hard to maintain some relevancy in the smartphone market against its rivalling manufacturers. Blackberry, which was at once a brand that ruled the smartphone market is now dominated by rivals like the iPhone and other android devices from different manufacturing companies.
As one of the company's final efforts, it has come up with this new product, the Blackberry Priv, the current flagship device of the company that its CEO John Chen is "betting the farm" on.
As of now, the device is available only in select markets and the pressure to perform is immense as the CEO has announced that the company might exit the handset business altogether if the Prive can't move 5 million units this year.
Priv runs Android OS and is set out to create a user-experience that blends the best aspects of android with traditional blackberry security, privacy and productivity features. In addition to this, there is a full slide-out physical keyboard.
It is to be priced at $699.99 without a contract; the company is positioning the device as a premium product. Here are a few reviews about the product from various Tech geeks:
"Typing on real keys with a phablet-sized 5.4-inch screen towering over them is odd at first, but once I found my acrobatic balance, my fingers were scurrying around at up to 60 words per minute," wrote Joana Stern of The Wall Street Journal "That's about 20% faster than I type on my iPhone (though still 15% slower than on the BlackBerry Classic's larger, wider, backlit keyboard),"
"The fact that a company in 2015 is making a pretty decent Android smartphone with a keyboard deserves plenty of praise, because people do still crave them," wrote Daniel Cooper of Engadget. "I just can't imagine anyone who has become inured to using an on-screen keyboard will consider dropping seven hundred big ones to go back to how it was."
Thus to sum up, Blackberry Priv has Mixed reviews. With Pros being: the Physical QWERTY keyboard, beautiful screen, good notification, and excellent voice quality and battery life. The cons being its high price, Heaviness, camera focus issues and Super-thick Android skin.
