TELUS BlackBerry Q10 Review – #10BestOfBBQ10

For the past month I have been lucky to be a part of the TELUS program dubbed “10 Best of BlackBerry Q10” with the Twitter hashtag #10BestOfBBQ10. The folks at TELUS were kind enough to send me a brand new TELUS BlackBerry Q10 along with an activated TELUS line and let me play with it so I could review it and let you, my loyal readers, and the internet at large know what I think of it. Before I go on, I want to be clear about a few things:
1. I really was excited to play with this device and wanted to love it and make it my primary phone from the moment I got the email from TELUS.

2. I don’t really care about apps beyond my core of email, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and a web browser. Having Foursquare and some other apps is nice and all but it isn’t an absolute necessity and I would gladly give them up for a physical keyboard on a device which functioned superbly.

3. I love Swype for Android because of the ease of typing but I choose it over all other keyboard options available for Android because of its editing capabilities. The easy way I can use keyboard shortcuts to cut, copy, and paste reminds me of my PC and my BlackBerry keyboard which both have shortcuts for those functions. On any BlackBerry before the Z10 and the Q10 (referred to as a “Legacy BlackBerry”) this was accomplished by a few different shortcuts which BlackBerry helpfully lists here. On a PC it’s the old reliable CTRL-X, CTRL-C, & CTRL-V. That, coupled with the trackpad-replacing “Edit Keyboard Layer (PIC)” which Swype has means it is my go to and you’ll be hard pressed to convince me to switch to another keyboard.

The final straws for me with my 9900 was when I got the black clock of waiting when the phone had freshly booted and I was writing an email. The device slowing down during such a mundane task was too much coupled with the camera being so horrible I couldn’t take a picture of an article in the newspaper because it’s fixed focus lens couldn’t handle close up shots. When those 2 things happened I gave up, threw in the towel, called it quits, and broke up with BlackBerry.

For all those who are too lazy to read a long review here it is in three sentences: The TELUS HSPA/LTE network in Toronto is great providing very good coverage and speeds. All in all, the BlackBerry Q10 

Review: Rogers One Number

First off, thanks to the folks at Rogers who hooked me up with a Rogers line and phone so I could test out the new service now available to all of their customers for free: Rogers One Number (RON).

Rogers One Number is, in Rogers’ own words, ‘is a new service exclusively from Rogers [which] lets you talk, text and send picture messages, and video chat with other Rogers One Number users, all from your computer using your existing phone number.’ The RON dialog on your computer also allows you to add email inboxes so you can manage as many different methods of communication from one spot as possible.

Before I get into my experiences I want to let you know my quick and dirty opinion on RON and if it is right for you. If you’re a Rogers customer sign up immediately. There is absolutely no reason not to, it’s free and it is a great tool to have at your disposal.

The whole thing was extremely easy to set up from the RON website but note that the setup has to be done from your desktop/laptop and cannot be done from your phone. Once my laptop* had it installed

IT #Protip: Restart computers/devices that act up. It fixes problems so often you’d be amazed.

A friend called me today to ask me for help with his BlackBerry. He said his Text Messages icon had disappeared from his phone and the text messages themselves were nowhere to be found anywhere on his phone. At first I thought he must have hid the icon so I told him to “Show All” and he said it didn’t help so the next thing I told him was to restart (aka reboot) his phone. Minutes later my friend sent me a BBM message:

Him: Yooo

Me: Yo

Him: Restart fixed it thanks

Me: Hah no prob

Always first step when any computer acts wonky

Reboot

Him: lol

Me: I’m serious

–End Conversation—

He didn’t respond to my last message aside from laughing about something I was being completely serious when relating even when I said that I was being serious. No “OK,” no “I totally will next time.” And there’s the thing – I know that he will call me again when he has a tech support issue and one of the first questions I will ask will be “Did you reboot?” and he will, of course, say no and I will, naturally, get frustrated with him wasting my time (which I am giving him for free). Then, he will wonder why I am getting so annoyed with him…we’re friends after all aren’t we? Shouldn’t I want to help him? Except he won’t remember this conversation when I did help him and did give him this magic bullet solution to a lot of his technology/gadget issues.

Seriously folks, even if you work in an office that has an IT Department paid to cater to your every whim before you call them about your computer/device/phone issue, restart it.

This is not something that anyone who even has a passing understanding on how to use their electronic device should have any trouble doing. There is no secret code to do it and no hidden menus to accomplish this feat. It is simple, it is easy, and it fixes an astounding number of issues for computing devices. Even if you aren’t having any computer issues I always recommend giving your computer a restart every day if you can. Doing this clears the RAM and is just overall a good thing to do for your computer and it is amazing how many people don’t bother to do this. This also goes for iPhones, BlackBerrys. Android devices, iPads, PlayBooks, Android tablets, Macs, PCs and even the PalmPilot your dad still insists on using even though Palm stopped supporting it in 2001 because it still does everything he needs it to do and he has no reason to upgrade.

In 2009 LifeHacker.com published this awesome flowchart in the article Tech Support Cheat Sheet Reveals The Secrets Of Troubleshooting which they pulled from popular webcomic XKCD and which can be found in its original here. To quote LifeHacker when they posted the article:

‘The only thing missing is the “If you haven’t already, restart your computer and try again” entry.’

See! Even they commented on it!

I promise you if you restart your computer/device before calling IT or your friend who consider “a computer person” or “a technology person” you will immediately earn tons of respect from them when they ask “Did you reboot?” and you say “Yes, I did, but it didn’t help.” They will also be 1,000,000,000 times less likely to respond to your queries in a passive aggressive manner, get annoyed with you, or be slow to respond when you call for help the next time you need it.

Images Row of Computers & Computer Help Key via Microsoft Office.

Tech Support Cheat Sheet via XKCD .

BlackBerry Bold 9900 At A Glance

I just got the brand new BlackBerry Bold 9900 delivered to me from RIM (Research In Motion) and I wanted to give all y’all a quick few thoughts about the device and my experience in switching from my trusty BlackBerry Torch 9800 to this new hawtness. As you can see by the date of the previous post, I won that BlackBerry Torch 9800 in late September of 2010 and received it in October 2010. Let’s be clear, this is not going to be an extensive review it is merely going to be a little glance into the differences I have noticed thus far and what delights me and disappoints me about it thus far.

BlackBerry Torch 9800 (open) next to Bold 9900.

First things first, already I am sort of in love with this new device. The keyboard is amazing and it is surprising how the couple extra cm? mm? in the device’s/keyboard’s width makes such a huge difference for typing. (Clearly it doesn’t matter what anyone tells you, when it comes to cell phones size does matter!)

CardStar – An App I Like, Find Very Useful, & How To Move Your Backups On It Cross-Platform

I have been using this app called CardStar on my BlackBerry Torch 9800 for quite a while and I used it on my Bold 9700 and Bold 9000 before it. You can find them on Twitter at @MyCardStar. The point of the app is that it lets you store digital versions of your loyalty, reward and club membership cards right on your smartphone. This lightens your wallet and makes me happy especially as a man who doesn’t want to look like he’s got George Costanza’s wallet.

The app works across platforms and is available for BlackBerry, Android, iPhone/iOS, Windows Phone 7, and Symbian. I have used this app, as I mentioned above, for a long time and while I won’t pretend I use it on a daily basis the great thing about it is that when I need it, it’s there.

Dear RIM: Enough With These Tiny Email Attachment Size Limitations!

 

Me with the @BlackBerryScene Team @ Yonge & St Clair Toronto after I won my 9800 Torch (that's what the card in my right hand is).

As my regular readers know, I use a BlackBerry Torch 9800 and I love it quite a bit. Heck, I’m using my Torch to write this post right now. I am a BBM addict and love the keyboard. But there are certain things about BlackBerry devices which are really, really starting to grind my gears. One of these is the email attachment size limitation both incoming and outgoing. The email size limitation on any BlackBerry running BlackBerry 6 Operating System (OS) or earlier – this means any BlackBerry which came out before the recently launched BlackBerry OS 7 devices – has a limit of 3 megabytes (MB) for the size of attachments that can be received and sent from a BlackBerry device. Even if your device is running the brand new OS 7 it only ups the limits to 11 MB.

As well, message content gets truncated (cut off) at 60 KB (kilobytes) with the older OSes. With OS 7 you are allowed 300 KB before it gets truncated. At first glance 60 KB sounds like it should be more than enough. After all, as each character is only 1 bit and there are 8 bits in a byte, 60 KB means you have (roughly) 60,000 bytes * 8 bits/byte = 480,000 characters. That works until you realize people send HTML based emails which take up A LOT more space.

These sizes are WAY too small for the second decade of the 21st Century

Dear RIM: Marketing Idea For All Y’All – Market To Celebrity Security

 

Many of you have probably heard the news that Scarlett Johansson recently had her phone hacked and she is enlisting the help of the FBI to track down who the perpetrators were. She is probably pretty pissed off about it because nude photos of her were taken off the hacked phone and posted online. Scarlett is not the only one, however, Mila Kunis’ phone was hacked and some not family friendly pictures were also leaked from her phone of her and Justin Timberlake as well as one of an unknown gentleman’s genitals (Justin Timberlake has denied that that picture is of him).

According to CBC, Scarlett is not the only celebrity to enlist the help of the FBI to find out who hacked her phone. This article on the CBC’s website says that the “U.S. agency is investigating a hacking ring responsible for as many as 50 breaches of celebrity email accounts, including those of Jessica Alba, Miley Cyrus and Christina Aguilera.” 

I know, after being at the launch of the BlackBerry 7 devices – #BB7FanNight – in Toronto (see my review of that night on BerryReview here) that Former Toronto Blue Jay Joe Carter is a huge BlackBerry addict as is his whole family. Other celebs are known to be CrackBerry addicts as well – such as Jennifer Garner who was recently seen in an Apple Store playing with her BlackBerry – and all the other celebs listed under the Celebrity Sightings tag on CrackBerry. There is even a whole blog CelebrityBlackBerrySightings.com devoted to pics of celebs with their favorite secure device!

Now, with all these celebrity security issues going on right now I have a brilliant PR & marketing idea for you RIM…but you have to strike while the iron is hot!

Now is the time for you guys to be reaching out to all these celebs and sports figures and offering them free BlackBerry devices!

Your devices are known to be the most secure and if all these celebs are feeling the heat of their phones & devices being hacked now is the time to put BlackBerry devices in their hands!

One key thing though, and this is why you got to move quickly on this. You have to encourage the celebs whose security has been compromised to say that they’re switching to BlackBerry devices now because of the security features.

The reasons this is so key is obvious and not so obvious. The obvious reason is because celebs pushing your product is good exposure. The other reason is because the stuff taken from the phones was stuff that many of us have on our phones. (Pictures that are private is what I am referring to, of course.) I am thinking this is key because it will make it appeal to a more general demographic. It will also highlight a key aspect of BlackBerry devices.

What do you think readers? What do you think BlackBerry? Going to get on this? I think you should!