With the BlackBerry Q5, the Canadian smartphone company is returning to its bread and butter: affordable, keyboard-equipped messaging phones for the masses. This time though, the Curve series successor packs the new BlackBerry 10 operating system and a touchscreen to boot: can it kick it with the low price Android and Nokia Windows Phones knocking around in 2013? Is it worth £20 per month?
PROS
Say what you will about the software, the BlackBerry Q5 packs something few rivals do these days: a physical keyboard. If you've been reared on QWERTYs and BBM, you'll be right at home here: though the isolated Curve-style keys are now in perfectly straight lines to make space for the larger screen above, they're just as easy to race along on as ever. Touchscreen keyboards have come on in leaps and bounds since the iPhone's debut in 2007, but if tactile buttons are what you're used to, the Q5 has you covered.
CONS
Speaking of the screen, the 3.1 inch display is crisp and clear, with roughly the same pixel per inch resolution as many other rivals with HD displays on the market. Its boxy aspect ratio means it's not ideal for watching films on, unless you've got a weird thing for letterboxing, but it's otherwise just fine for browsing the web and reading long articles. If only there were apps like Pocket to do that on BlackBerry 10.
The new OS does have its positives too however: courtesy of the 1.2GHz processor, it's zippy and easy to use, with intuitive gestures to swoop home and go back, plus access to the excellent universal inbox from anywhere in the OS - Apple could probably learn a few things from it if it really wants to fix Notification Center in iOS 7.
I hate to say it, but while the BlackBerry Q5 is being billed as the affordable way to join the BlackBerry 10 party, at £320 SIM-free, it's still not very cheap. You can get an app-packed Samsung Galaxy S3 for only £20 more these days, or a solid Android phone for as little as £50. For the money, it's just not very well built. The five megapixel camera is completely mundane, and the plastic feels creaky, and frankly, a little childish. It's a long way from the premium feel of the BlackBerry Q10 or a new Nokia, that's for sure.
Really though, the problems lie with the operating system. Dig beneath its friendly veneer and you'll find it's not that powerful, simply because it lacks the apps of Android and iOS - it's the problem Windows Phone suffers from, but multiplied. You have to watch out for the ones it does have too: you can download and run some Android apps on it, but they run like maple syrup down the side of a tree. Why put up with this when you could buy into an eco-system with more apps that work instead? It's a question BlackBerry is still struggling to answer.
CONCLUSION
The BlackBerry Q5 is a reasonably well constructed smartphone with a productive keyboard and a sharp screen. That’s the issue though: it's only reasonably well made when you should expect excellence, and the problems with BlackBerry 10 remain, especially the dire lack of apps. That said, there are few options with a physical keyboard left these days, and BlackBerry’s fancier Q10 is eye-wateringly, wallet-empytingly expensive. Unless you really need those buttons though, the BlackBerry Q5 has little to offer
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