Blackberry Priv early impressions: This is (currently) not a very good phone

Specs at a glance: Blackberry Priv Screen Curved 5.43-inch, 2560×1440 pixel, 540 PPI AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass 4 OS Android 5.1.1 Lollipop CPU Snapdragon 808 hexa-core, 64 bit: dual-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A57 and quad-core 1.44 GHz Cortex-A53 RAM 3GB LPDDR3 933MHz RAM GPU Qualcomm Adreno 418 GPU Storage 32GB plus micro SD expansion Networking 5GHz 802.11 ac/a/n, 2.4Ghz 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 Low Energy, NFC Ports micro USB 2.0 Connector with SlimPort enabled Camera 18MP rear facing camera, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), Phase Detect Auto Focus (PDAF), ast focus lock, Dual 2mm LED Flash, 4K video at 30fps, 1080p video at 60fps; 2MP selfie camera Size 147mm (184mm opened) x 77.2mm x 9.4mm Weight 192g Battery 3410mAh Other perks Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Gyroscope, Time of Flight (ToF) Proximity, Ambient Light, Altimeter, Activity Monitor Price £560, $699 (unlocked SIM-free)

This is it. The last hurrah. The all-in, every-egg-in-the-basket, everything-including-the-kitchen-sink, last-ditch attempt to save a company—or at least part of it. The Priv, Blackberry's first phone powered by Android, is designed to be all things to all people: a slick consumer device with a great display, sharp camera, and access to a huge library of apps; a business workhorse with long battery life, slick e-mail functionality, and a physical keyboard; and a secure, Fort Knox phone for the tin-foil hat brigade (and/or enterprise IT types).

This is a big ask, particularly for a company that hasn't launched a truly successful device since the Bold in 2008.

It is with great sadness, then, that I must report that the Priv doesn't quite hit the mark.

Or at least, in the few days I've spent with it, it hasn't. Unfortunately, the review embargo for the Priv was set to lift just two days after review samples were sent to the press, which isn't enough time to come to a concrete conclusion on what it's actually like to use as a phone on a daily basis. So consider this a "first impressions," with a full review to follow. There is also every chance that the final production version of the Priv will be better than the review sample that we received.

Design

Let's start with the positives. The Priv's 5.43-inch, 2560×1440, 540 PPI, AMOLED display is colourful, pin sharp, and insanely bright. Like the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, it curves at the edges, the Gorilla Glass 4 meeting an aluminium surround with a gentle slope. Below the screen is a large speaker that runs the width of the display; in true Blackberry fashion it's very loud and very clear, making it good for both ad-hoc conference calls and for watching YouTube videos in bed. The speaker, set below the height of the screen, hints at the Priv's USP: its slide-out physical keyboard.

Pushing up from the speaker using the handy lip reveals the physical keyboard in all its classic Blackberry glory. You'd think this would make the phone top heavy, but it remains well-balanced, a testament to Blackberry's well-honed design chops. The sliding mechanism itself is smooth and solid, with not even the slightest hint of wiggle, and it's so very hard not to keep playing with it. The only disappointment is that sliding the phone open doesn't directly answer a phone call. After all, if The Matrix has taught us anything, it's that answering phone calls with a slider is the height of '00s cool. Instead, opening the slider when a call comes in brings up a menu that lets you accept, decline, or send a canned text message.

As for the keyboard itself, after years of using touch-keyboards, going back to a physical one is an odd experience, and I typed far slower as a result of using it. I expect my typing would get better with practice, and there are plenty of people out there that swear by physical keyboards. For them, I've no doubt the move back to a four-row keyboard with the proper alt, shift, and symbol keys will be a welcome one.

The keyboard does have a few other neat tricks up its sleeve, though, many of which have been taken from the Blackberry Passport. It works as a touchpad, letting you scroll up and down or left to right just by swiping across it. Individual keys can be programmed as shortcuts, too; you can, for example, set the "T" key to open Twitter when you hold it down. Particularly useful is the ability to use the space bar as a shutter button when taking photos, making awkward shots and selfies less of a challenge.

Mark Walton

The Priv is understated and attractive.

Mark Walton

The Priv is understated and attractive.

Mark Walton

The Priv's a big phone, but it feels comfortable to hold.

Mark Walton

The rear of the Priv is covered in a strange surface that provides great grip, but isn't properly attached to the surface underneath.

Mark Walton

Mark Walton

Mark Walton

Mark Walton

The very loud and clear speaker at the bottom of the phone.

Mark Walton

Up top is the earpiece and 2MP selfie camera.

Mark Walton

The horribly ugly camera surround.

Mark Walton

The power button on the left side of the phone.

Mark Walton

Up top is the sim card slot and microSD card slot.

Mark Walton

Mark Walton

The Priv sat next to an iPhone 6.

Mark Walton

The Priv's thickness versus the iPhone 6.

The rest of the Priv follows Blackberry's business chic aesthetic, which means you can have it in any colour you like as long as it's black, and you don't mind a lack of flashy adornments. Personally, I think it looks rather handsome. The power button on the left of the phone and the volume buttons on the right are simple, inoffensive chrome affairs that have a satisfying click to them, while the bottom of the chassis houses a no-fuss micro USB socket and 3.5mm headphone jack. Up top there's a two-tone effect where the aluminium housing of the screen meets the black plastic of the rear, with the black section containing the SIM card tray and micro SD tray (which supports up to 2TB cards, should they ever actually come out).

So far, so good, but the rear of the phone is where things start to get a little ugly. For starters, ohhh that camera surround. I've no idea why it's so big when the module itself—an 18MP, Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS), Phase Detect Auto Focus (PDAF) affair—is so small, and it reminds me of the ancient Nokia 6600—not a good a thing for a 2015 device. Beside that is a two-tone LED flash, with a metallic Blackberry logo set below. The back of the Priv is covered in surprisingly grippy coating that looks a little like carbon fibre.

While the rear panel does a good job of making a flagship phone non-slippery (a rare thing indeed), there's something not quite right with it. When you gently press on the back of the Priv, the backplate flexes and moves, as if there's a fairly sizeable air gap beneath. This is not something you'd expect from a phone that costs £560 ($699). Nor would you expect the phone to feel or sound hollow when you tap on the glass to open apps or use the touchscreen keyboard. Given the Priv I'm using is a non-final production model, there's a chance that this won't afflict retail units, but if it does, it's a massive strike against the Priv's build quality and feel.

Software

Rejoice, for the Priv is mostly based on stock Android 5.1.1 Lollipop (Blackberry is promising a Marshmallow version for the new year). Even things that OEMs love to toy with for no real reason, like the settings menu or notifications shade, look like the stock Android version. Blackberry's modifications are small, mostly to make use of either the keyboard or the curved display. For instance, if you swipe in from the edge of the display, you can view your calendar or recent messages or view recent messages. If you've used the Galaxy Edge, it's not dissimilar to that. When charging the Priv, a small coloured line creeps around the edge of the display. You can most certainly live without both.

More useful is Blackberry Hub, which brings all of your e-mail, social media accounts, and messaging services into a single app, letting you manage everything in an e-mail-like fashion. Blackberry Hub has always been one of the best reasons to buy a modern Blackberry phone, and it remains just as useful on the Priv. I especially love how you can snooze message alerts by time, by GPS location, or even by Wi-Fi network. For instance, if you receive a personal e-mail during the day, you can snooze it until your phone connects to your home Wi-Fi network, after which it'll remind you to fire over a reply. Very cool.

Thankfully, the hideous default wallpaper is easily replaced.

Thankfully, the hideous default wallpaper is easily replaced.

Holding down the home button brings up shortcuts to Google, Blackberry Search, and Blackberry Hub.

The productivity tab sits at the edge of the curved display.

The default Priv home screen shortcuts.

Notifications use the stock Google UI, with a few extra icons added at the top.

Blackberry Hub remains one of the best things about owning a Blackberry.

Snoozing messages is a particularly great feature.

DTEK software rates your Priv's security.

DTEK also allows you to see what things apps have been accessing on your phone.

Opening the slider when a call comes in brings up this menu. I would much rather it just answer the call.

Widgets can be swiped in from app icons.

Another Priv feature lets you integrate widgets into app icons. This lets you swipe up from an app icon to bring up its widget, rather than have it sit on the home screen using up space. Meanwhile, pressing and holding on the home button not only brings up the Google Now icon, but also brings up shortcuts to Blackberry search and Blackberry Hub.

There's also the DTEK app, which is a way for Blackberry to tell you how secure your device is. Aside from giving you a security rating, it gives you recommendations for how to improve your security, such as whether data encryption is enabled, or whether you've installed the latest updates. Most useful is the ability to dive into individual apps and see when they've been tapping your location or accessing certain files on your phone. We've all downloaded the odd app in a rush without really reading through exactly what it's accessing, so it's useful to be able to see exactly what every app is doing and when. For instance, if it's reading your location, DTEK will give you a history of readings, as well as the location.

Furthermore, to help with security, Blackberry is promising to issue security updates at least once a month for SIM-free users—but it also admits that its time estimate will differ by carrier and location.

Are any of these apps or software mods enough to warrant buying a Priv over any other Android device? I'm not so sure, particularly for the regular consumers Blackberry is hoping to attract.

Camera, battery, and performance

On paper, the Priv's camera should be brilliant. It's an 18MP module with OIS, PDAF, fast focus lock, dual-LED flash, 1080p video recording at 60 FPS, and 4K video recording at 30 FPS.

Unfortunately, from the few photos that I've taken with the Priv, it doesn't look great, with photos that are both soft and noisy. Low-light photos are even worse, and most irritatingly, the Priv's image processing is horribly slow. Take a photo in low-light and it takes a good few seconds before you can view it in the gallery, slowing down the whole phone in the process.

Hopefully this is a software issue that Blackberry can fix—but right now, I can't imagine using the Priv's camera for anything but the odd social media snap. As Android cameras go, it's at the bottom of the pile.

Some quick shots from inside the Ars UK office.

Some quick shots from inside the Ars UK office.

My desk! Some sensitive information was blurred out via Photoshop, but otherwise untouched.

A random scull next to the Wired design chaps.

Night shot with HDR on.

And with HDR off.

Then there's the battery life. Again, on paper it should be fantastic. The Priv sports a huge 3410mAh battery that goes some way towards explaining its hefty 192g weight. Blackberry says this should net around 22 hours of mixed usage... but for me, the Priv was out of juice by around 10 in the evening after being unplugged at eight in the morning. That only works out to around 14 hours, far below what Blackberry claims. Even with the heavier usage I put the phone through in testing, I'd have expected far more from a battery so large.

Further Reading BlackBerry CEO won't commit to BB10 devices, hints at leaving handset market

With an Android phone in the works, only "business choices" will dictate the future.

At the very least, the Priv performs well thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 inside, which is the same SoC used in the LG G4. The only problem is that it gets very hot very quickly when under load, to the point where it's uncomfortable. I didn't notice any throttling taking place, but the benchmarks in the full review should reveal if the heat is getting out of hand. One final note on the Privs performance: the headphone amp is terrible. I know Blackberry isn't exactly pitching the Priv as having killer audio, but the volume it puts out is so weak that it barely managed to drive the UE 900 headphones I tested it with—and those aren't anywhere near as demanding as some over-the-ear sets.

Maybe that all sounds like nitpicking, but for what is an expensive device, the Priv needs to do better. As cheap smartphones get good, and good smartphones get cheap, anyone launching a device at the top end of the market needs to do something special to warrant the price. That's especially true for the Priv, which bears the weight of expectation of a million Blackberry fanboys and an increasingly agitated group of shareholders. Unfortunately for Blackberry, I don't think the Priv is the saviour it so desperately needs.

This post originated on Ars Technica UK

Source: Blackberry Priv early impressions: This is (currently) not a very good phone