Submitted by Our new Mobility Solutions strategy is showing signs of momentum, including our first major device software licensing agreement with a telecom joint venture in Indonesia. Under this strategy, we are focusing on software development, including security and applications. The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners. This allows us to reduce capital requirements and enhance return on invested capital.
End of an era, but not exactly unexpected. This leaves the Priv as the only – ad probably last – modern keyboard smartphone, which is really, really too bad.
I just recently moved back to Android from a Z30 and I really miss the software keyboard (among other things ;-)).
Luckily the Android version of the BB keyboard can be installed on non BB devices as well:
https://cobalt232.github.io/blackberrymanager/
I recently bought a Blackberry Passport, and this makes me sad. Blackberry OS 10 is actually rather nice to use, and the device is plenty snappy and sells for an afforable price. The keyboard works really well, even though you’d think the spacebar being inside the keyboard would be annoying (it’s not).
But I suppose that just making a decent device isn’t enough anymore. If you aren’t Android or iOS, no one cares–even if, like Blackberry OS, you have compatibility with Android.
Gotta agree. Bought a Passport as soon as I could. Lovely screen, good battery life, the ‘swipe’ UI is pretty good, it’s got a keyboard (YES! A FRICKIN KEYBOARD!), looks nice, not too big not too small.
Blackberry blend is great. I’d just rev-bump some of the UI e.g. proper drag and drop to local machine and a few other minor things.)
Blackberry hub (combined email/SMS/linkedin etc) is just as I want it for the most part.
There’s a few things that could be bumped in a revision e.g. improve the camera (speed of HDR mostly, and an option to change compression ratios).
Essentially this… it’s a great device. The best phone I’ve ever owned.
I’d love it if Blackberry kept just this one device alive! I don’t even want much! Keep the hardware up-to-date and bump the software whenever needed. That can be expensive and I guess BB have done their sums… Yeah, I’m a little sad about this.
I was sad to see BB10 devices first be discontinued and lose their support. I have owned a Z10 for just over two years, and I find that I prefer BB10 to Android. Unfortunately, as BB10 has aged and lost compatibility with Android apps, I found myself needing a new device. I got a Priv recently. I like the hardware. It is very fast. And Android has definitely improved since I last used it. But I still prefer BB10. It was the last decent alternative mobile OS available.
BB10 took away many ingenious tricks BlackBerry invented (keyboard shortcuts from previous OS that did not work anymore). I got over it. The Classic is one of the best built phones ever. I had to move away from it because without some key apps BB10 just didn’t cut it anymore. Work moved from BES to Exchange and from Exchange to Good. Funny that products from Good, a Blackberry company, are not supported on BB10 – but were never meant to be. Good ran via the android layer but was unusably slow. So I got the PRIV, so that I can at least have a keyboard, and I like it, but it’s a compromise phone. It’s slow. And now, we will be lucky if we see another major Android version on it. End of an era indeed.
So I guess this makes my Priv something of a collector’s item: last ever phone with a physical keyboard. Thank God it’s a high end phone and it will likely last me another four years at least. I can live with Marshmallow if need be and who knows, maybe they’ll update it to Nougat after all, it’s not like they have a lot of other Android phones to support…
Somehow, partially by virtue of being a physical keyboard aficionado, I always end up with these collector’s items. Sony Ericsson P1i, Palm Pre 2, Motorola Pro+.. But the Priv is by far the nicest and most future proof so far.
I still highly recommend it, especially since the price will probably drop now.
Edited 2016-09-29 16:28 UTC
Samsung sells a hardware keyboard that’ll attach to the Note 7. I think they have one for the S7 as well. Been thinking about ordering one.
BB10 really was awesome, and they now have the blackberry hub in the android store. Unfortunately you have to pay for their subscription and screw that I have enough subscriptions and it doesn’t work as well as it did in BB10 anyhow. Too bad, I really dislike Google and Apple, but Google is currently the lesser of two evils…
John Chen said there are still phones (at least one) coming with a keyboard.
See http://crackberry.com/john-chen-blackberry-keyboard-will-live
I’ll believe it when I see it. I was actually hoping for them to release the codename “Mercury” phone and thinking of swapping for it as it’s got a more compact candybar form factor than the Priv. But we’ll see… at the beginning of the year the rumors were for it to be released in Q3 2016, now the rumors say Q1 2017, who knows when/if it will actually materialize.
The writing was on the wall. BB10 was a great OS — I owned the Z10 (still have it), Z30, Passport (still my favorite mobile device ever), Q10, and very briefly the Classic before returning it due to build quality issues — but it’s hard to take a company which espouses “security” seriously when they also talk about sharing master encryption keys and their CEO thinks its a civic duty to build backdoors into their software.
That didn’t kill Blackberry of course, and honestly, neither did Chen … it just did nothing to help rebuild their reputation in the current climate.
I always thought that Blackberry’s mistake was doubling down in the “Blackberry” name which was poison by 2011 or so. Had they stayed “Research in Motion” (because nobody knows what that is) and then re-branded the hardware division as maybe QNX Mobile or something, maybe they would have had a chance. So often people would (in public) be impressed with my Passport or Z30, only to be told it was a Blackberry and then immediately lose interest with, “Are they still around?”
I completely agree!
I get compliments all the time on my Priv, all my Facebook and Instagram friends think im using a profesional camera. Then I tell them its a blackbery and think my phone is old!! But they are amazed that a phone that big has a keyboard. Sure it runs hot, kills the battery by 10am, and gets really slow. But that has been a constant problem with all my android phones. HTC Evo, LG G3, S4, Nexus 5, and now the Priv. Well the only exception was the evo shift and the photon. Its an android problem, why do they all suffer? It has to be me, because I always have those issues, I cant blame so many companies for the same complaints. The z10 is a wonderful phone, then they made the z30 a verizon exclusive. Shame, Shame, the post iPhone world is becoming so iPhonenish. More of the same, year after year, no room for actual change.
Priv is $250 off right now, would you recommend it today?
That’s Lame-o.