Blackberry Z10

by Michael Brown Writer

The Blackberry Z10 is one of the latest smartphone offerings to feature in recent mobile phone deals in 2013. In this article we take a look at the ins and outs of this smartphone as a result of our recent road test.

The Build

The first thing to note is that Blackberry has dropped the physical QWERTY keypad in favour of a full touchscreen. The QWERTY keypad was one of the characteristics that drove buyers to this brand so would the loss of this feature drop the Z10 out of the scope of your best mobile phone deals?

The 4.2-inch screen is aptly sized for watching media and with 355 pixels per inch the quality of output exceeds that of its rivals the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5. Blackberry has also insured that the display stretches to the edge of the phone casing, which is textured on the reverse.

Navigation

A key feature that is sure to make the Z10 popular within the crowded mobile phone deals is the easy navigation. Three homescreens are labelled at the bottom of the display and to the far left is the Blackberry Hub. The Hub is where the action is with social media posts, calls, BBM alerts and notifications all grouped together in this location.

Camera

The camera is always one of the first things we look to when discovering great mobile phone deals. The Blackberry Z10 delivers an 8MP resolution and captures an image that is as good as the eye can see. An on-board editing suite is also on hand for making enhancements, although there aren't as many filters as on something like the Nexus 4. Would this be a deal breaker for you or would you be prepared to transfer the images onto a computer and use a free app like paint.net or digitalenhance?

Features

For business users the Docs to Go app is essential offering the ability to open, edit and send Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents whilst on the go. Print to Go is also featured on this mobile phone for wireless printing making the Z10 a good choice for business users looking for the best mobile phone deals.

The Story Maker app is really cool allowing users to thread together pictures and video clips into a short movie with background music. There is also a range of filters to add an overall theme to the movies such as a vintage feel and titles and credits can also be created.

Pre-installed on the Blackberry Z10 are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare making this mobile smartphone socially ready. Users can also visit Blackberry World for app downloads and whilst there aren't as many apps compared to Google Play or the Apple app store there is an alternative app for everything you might need.

Text messages can also be quickly created using a predictive text system with an easy swipe option for picking predicted words. The ultimate question though for Blackberry fans is will they be prepared to give this a go or simply look for other mobile phone deals with a smartphone that has a full QWERTY?