From the Guardian

It's a clever set up, much better than their prior efforts at touch interfaces, but I'm not sure there's a 'wow' feature that would make you buy one over and above an Android or iOS phone. It's a viable choice if you haven't already had a smartphone but I can't see it tempting people away from the big two. And unless/until it's app store matures, they're going to be fighting Microsoft, not Apple or Google.

One thing I've never thought I'd see:
Queues for BBs on the launch day

The ability to have separate business and private areas will be very useful to many. I can see businesses liking it. Not so sure about consumers. There may not be enough games and leisure apps to keep consumers happy. Though overall it is a very capable phone. The complicated swipes will be overcome with experience. Though it might be too late. I do think that it make it a challenger to some manufacturers.

The problem for businesses is it's nowhere near as useful without a BES Server, which is a rather expensive thing. I think the cost of BES will put off a lot of businesses from going over to Blackberry, especially the idea of investing so much money in the proprietary product of a company whose future is still far from certain. Plus given the rapid growth of BYOD, I think the number of people who care enough to have a 'hard' separation between their 'office persona' and their 'personal persona' isn't as big as you do.

It's a very nice phone and I think it will reduce the rate that existing users migrate away due to 'handset envy' but I don't really see it regaining a massive amount of ground over the competition. BB are still playing for third place.

I think third place is a perfectly acceptable target in such a huge market. Hopefully for them, the new products will at least stop the existing user base moving away. There are a lot of Blackberry servers out there already, and that existing investment is on their side.

I want one. I was going to stick with my Bold 9900 and go SIM only, but I really like the look of the Z10.

To me the keyboard on the Q10 looks inferior to that of the Bold 9900, but I'd have to play with one to make a firm decision.

I do think that for those with Blackberry servers it will make a lot of sense. The additional expense of servers will not be there and the handset could be the best on the market with a completely button free handset. It will be businesses that want the complete separation of business and private lives, I doubt that individuals who get the phone will care, but if they get the choice of phones it could make sense for them. There are many consumers who already have used Blackberry before and these could be easy converts. Attracting new businesses will be harder but it might be the end of the decline of RIM.

TBH, I haven't seen the new version of BES yet and I can't tell what the upgrade path is. If it's effectively a free upgrade fair enough, if it's a charged upgrade again you're forcing people to make a decision.

I'll let you into a minor secret. Place I work for, we have roughly 250 users with Blackberrys connected to our BES server. I sat down with our mobile supplier's catalogue one day and worked it out - if we ever have to renew our BES licences at full price, it will actually be cheaper for us to buy those 250 people iPhones or Android phones. Which will connect to our systems perfectly happily and securely without BES.

Blackberry really do have to tread carefully here. if they want to encourage adoption of the new phones and the new version of BES, they're going to have to make it pretty cheap to do so.


I'm not sure people care about 'button free' and I think the 'best on the market' is as yet optimistic.


I think it's a fair prediction it will do that. The problem is 'the end of the decline' going to be enough for the stock market? Generally speaking, the stock market wants growth or it gets really upset.

The fact that there were queues outside shops for it is a very healthy sign. I have a new iPhone 5 and the basic form factor looked like an iPhone, but lacking buttons. The reviewer mentioned that there were no buttons and you swipe to turn it on.

Whether it is the best on the market is a matter of judgement, but it looks pretty good as an iPhone user. The gap between the brands has narrowed significantly. I do think that the Microsoft phone interface is pretty good and the Blackberry interface is probably better still. The differences might be minimal between them all.

I didn't like the framing of that shot tbh. That might have been all the queue there was. OK, any sort of queue is better than none but it wasn't 'round the block' from what we could see. Might have been more people, but we can't tell from the shot. I have a suspicion that if the queue was longer than that. the photographer would have changed the angle to show more of it.


In which case calling something 'best on the market' is kind of pointless.

BB will sink or swim probably over the next six months or so. First day sales are all very well, but it's contract renewals and BES licences that will keep the wolf from the door.

You are right. For me as an iPhone user I do think that it is certainly on a par with the iPhone, it all depends on how useable that swipe only screen is. The lack of apps might be a problem but then how many do most people actually use? As long as what it does is good, people can overlook such problems. Also many bought the BB without a server, and use BBM for messaging.