I’m on my last day of the BlackBerry Passport 30-Day Challenge. I thought it was a good opportunity to round up my experiences. If you’ve been watching the rest of my videos, you’ll know I had my share of frustrations and I found things that I enjoyed. I’ve made videos about those and also try to feature some of the less known qualities of the BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry 10 Operating System. You can find links to all my previous videos in the description box as well as links to reviews published about a month ago regarding the unboxing and anything else BlackBerry Passport related that you might want to take a look at. This includes an in depth look at the keyboard and the BlackBerry Blend software. All of that is down in the description box.
To sum up my 30-days, I’ve really enjoyed it and a part of that is trying to learn new things. I do enjoy looking at stuff that I’m not as familiar with, try to come to terms and find solutions to frustrations. It’s a pleasing experience especially when you do find solutions to those. Whether it be trying to find great apps or a working version of Instagram, which I managed to do thanks to one of my followers on Twitter. And also my job as a phone reviewer is to have a good knowledge of all the operating systems not just focusing on Android and iOS because they’re the most popular ones. But getting to grips to stuff that people don’t know as much about.
So I hope you enjoyed that look. If you’re not too familiar with BlackBerry, you’ve seen it and decided you still don’t like it and prefer your Android or iPhone in any way. That’s fine because in all honesty, so do I. But another part that I really enjoyed about the challenge was getting to know the user interface. I really enjoyed the gestures that BlackBerry 10 has like swipe up and away from screens to read notifications or manage my emails. It just all feels really natural to me now that I’ve had it for about four weeks—six weeks if you include the time that I had it before the 30-day challenge. You can be sure that I’ll be picking up my iPhone or Android phone and swiping up the screen and realizing that I’m not using a BlackBerry anymore.
As I mentioned in my review, the Passport remains unchanged on who this device is for. It’s not a device for everybody. And even myself, I don’t think I could have it as a single, daily driver phone without having anything else to fall back on because I use Hangouts and iMessage, I rely on iCloud, a lot of syncing things between my phone, tablet, and computer. But I could happily have it as a work phone. In fact, if I did have a personal device and work device for managing emails, then the BlackBerry Passport would probably be my first choice for that.
I love typing on the keyboard and I wouldn’t want to respond to professional emails in any other way. And yes, there were great software tools like SWIFT Key for both iOS and Android. But to me, nothing quite beats that physical feel of pressing down on buttons and feeling the click and knowing that you’ve actually pressed something.
So for now, I’ll be switching my SIM out to one of my personal phones and having to send the BlackBerry back. But for everyone that’s gotten involved on the comments on Twitter and those in the BlackBerry community who have hooked into this video series, I really appreciate it, thank you so much for your help in finding solutions and learning how to get to grips with this operating system. I have really enjoyed the experience and I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying a BlackBerry some point soon just not right now. The holiday season has sort of emptied my funds slightly.
This has been the 30-Day BlackBerry Passport Challenge.
Cam finishes his 30 day challenge, looking back at some of the things he's liked and giving his opinion on the feasibility of using the Passport as a daily driver.
Day 1 - Switching from an iPhone: http://youtu.be/gTc_uf-A6rs
Day 5 - It's all about those apps: http://youtu.be/GlQLXLVpmSc
Day 11 - Camera and Story Maker: http://youtu.be/NKXO_-pUMd8
Day 17 - 4 frustrations and a surprise: http://youtu.be/obCiHxcT54k
Day 21 - BlackBerry Assistant: http://youtu.be/-T4_G3efXNg
Day 25 - Three things I'll miss: http://youtu.be/zX7tG3E5pjw
BlackBerry Blend overview: http://youtu.be/0LRbNqUSjTM
Passport keyboard overview: http://youtu.be/Yn6DRcUFj8Y
BlackBerry Passport unboxing: http://youtu.be/ir4Y_aYqJiw
BlackBerry Passport review: http://youtu.be/nCwyBPuYK6g