BlackBerry's Innovation: Square-Screened Smartphones

EthanV2 sends word that BlackBerry, having finally caught up to a world dominated by smartphones, is now trying to push the envelope by developing a smartphone with a square screen. The BlackBerry Passport has a 4.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1440x1440. The phone has a physical keyboard as well. In a blog post about the new phone, they show a picture with it side-by-side with an iPhone and a Galaxy S5 — the Passport is slightly taller than the iPhone, and significantly wider, as you'd expect. The Passport is a play for BlackBerry's "traditional" work-oriented user base, where the earlier BlackBerry Z10 and Z30 were efforts to break into the post-iPhone consumer smartphone space. Though the Passport may well be preferable for spreadsheets and word processing, that square screen will be much less useful for widescreen movies, and its wide, blocky design will entirely prohibit one-handed use. The Passport is expected to appear later this year, and it will launch with BlackBerry 10.3 (at least, according to early hands-on previews).

Comments

Well that does solve the vertical video problem :)

[Obscene_CNN]

Well that does solve the whole vertical video problem doesn't it :)

Obi Wans opinion on the Blackberry

[maroberts]

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

It's like we've learned nothing in 5000 years

[Overzeetop]

1.25-1.5:1 How hard is that? We've got centuries of experience in making page sizes for reading and viewing, and most of them fall into that range. Unless you're Hasselblad, ditch the square. If you're not a television, please don't use 16:9.

#getoffmylawn

Re:It's like we've learned nothing in 5000 years

[AmiMoJo]

The limiting factor on a phone is what you can wrap your hand around. This thing looks so wide it couldn't be operated in a single hand. I notice that a lot of BB users are two-handers though, perhaps because of the keyboard, so maybe it isn't a problem in their target market.

1440 wide vs 1080 wide

[viperidaenz]

The picture next to the Samsung S5 is not very fair. They show the 1080 pixel wide S5 only fitting two and a half spread sheet columns on the screen.
The 1440 pixel wide BB has 11 columns.

The biggest difference there is the spread sheet viewing app, not the screen (both have the same number of pixels too).

Re:1440 wide vs 1080 wide

[Defenestrar]

No no no - the pixels aren't the same because the Blackberry has true square pixels - which is the best, and the Samsung has the narrow rectangular pixels which aren't very good for spreadsheets or other business applications.

Re:1440 wide vs 1080 wide

[viperidaenz]

I suppose the rounded corners on the iPhone pixels makes it bad for spreadsheets too

Que the outrage

[Maxwell]

Complaints of "no one is innovating anymore" followed closely by "look at BB, stupids, phones HAVE to be one handed and pocketable! No innovation allowed!"

Me? I kind of like it. I use two hands anyway so why not make a true two handed device?

Re:Que the outrage

[Maxwell]

And BB were always fat and square before the Bold models got slimmer. This is like the true successor to the click wheel line.

Re:Que the outrage

[taxman_10m]

Blackberry should make a killer android phone with qwerty slider.

Re:Well that does solve the vertical video problem

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

How do I say it? In just one word? How do I proclaim the way you won me over, once again?

Shall I try to give voice to these feelings? Listen as I whisper in your ear: "QWERTYUIOP"

hexagonal?

[goombah99]

A hexagonal screen would not only solve the vertical screen problem but also the 60 degree angle screen.

Re:Changing the shape is meaningless

[Karmashock]

I looked it up a bit and it turns out what you were doing was a subset of the appeal to authority, known as the appeal to accomplishment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

Examples:
""
        "How dare you criticize the prime minister? What do you know about running an entire country?"

        "I'll take your opinions on music seriously when you've released a record that went platinum."

        "Get back to me when you've built up a multi-billion dollar empire of your own. Until then, shut up."
""

So there you go... eat a dick.