Slashdot Mirror
BlackBerry Launches Square-Screened Passport Phone
New submitter Andrewkov writes: BlackBerry released its new Passport phone today. It has a square 4.5" screen and a physical keyboard, and it's aimed at corporate users. The company hopes the larger size, Siri-like voice recognition, 30-hour battery life, and improved security will buoy its market share. Early reviews are not terribly favorable — the Wall Street Journal says BlackBerry is still behind on the software, and "The bulky, awkward design and the unfamiliar keyboard make it hard to justify finding space for it in a pocket or bag." The Verge said, "[T]he Passport got in the way of getting work done more than it helped." Re/code calls it a phone only a BlackBerry user will love.
...thanks for cherry picking the worst part of every review. Most reviews seem to like it, appreciate it, but are on the fence about the size and form factor.
What I'm aware of us that everybody is repeating the same tiny handful of stories/reports of bent iPhone 6 Plus phones over and over again, so it's not clear if the negative press represents a real problem, or just a handful of defective phones that has raised an uproar. They're still selling like gangbusters, and it'll probably take at least a few days or weeks before we can find out if "bendgate" is the result of defective units or an actual design flaw.
The Blackberry Passport, for its part, is ridiculously wide, roughly equivalent to a six-inch tablet (it's half an inch wider than the 5.7" Galaxy Note 4). The form factor will probably relegate it to niche status.