Blackberry goes bigger and bolder with the Passport

All-in-all, the BlackBerry Passport is a solid release. It’s powerful, nicely designed and carries a physical keyboard that we rarely see these days.

BlackBerry (formerly Research in Motion) continues to develop new handsets for its loyal, albeit, waning market. The latest to come out on its stable is the BlackBerry Passport.

The Passport is pretty unique on several fronts. First is the squarish form factor that we’ve seen only for the first time. It feels like a phablet because of the more-than-usual width and forces the user to handle it with both hands. For a lot of old BlackBerry users, that’s not really an issue.

Second is the physical keyboard and the touch-screen display. BlackBerry introduced this in their old models and even continued to do so with the previous BlackBerry Q10.

The combination of a touch display and a full physical keyboard still makes sense for the BB OS 10. Screen navigation can be done through the touch display while text input is done using the physical keyboard.

The keyboard only uses around 20 percent of the space to give more real estate to the screen. It’s done with minimalist arrangement and layed out in just three rows with no alternate keys. If you need additional keys or characters, the screen will reveal an extended virtual keyboard, which is a nice and efficient implementation.

BlackBerry still knows how to make really good handset keyboards and the Passport is a testament to that.

The Passport has a nice, elegant design in a unique form factor that you will either love or not. For the most part, I think you’ll end up liking it.

The 4.5-inch IPS LCD screen might sound small compared to the flagship handsets this year but since the display is square, the area is actually really huge. Screen resolution is also one of the highest in the market at 453ppi pixel density.

The device is powered by a Snapdragon 801 chip, which is a quad-core processor  running 2.26GHz per core paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage that can be extended to 128GB via a microSD card.

Everything else is spot on – from 4G LTE connectivity, WiFI, Bluetooth and NFC.

The huge battery capacity, rated at 3,450mAh, also adds more than enough battery life to last the whole day plus a little bit more for the next day.

Perhaps the only issue with a lot of people who might consider a BlackBerry is the operating system and the app ecosystem.

BlackBerry OS 10 is a robust mobile operating system with a very light footprint. As such, the topnotch hardware and optimized software make the device perform really well. It’s snappy, responsive and blazing fast even on a multi-tasking environment.

Hundreds of thousands of apps and games can be downloaded via the BlackBerry World app store and the compatible Amazon App Store. Apps can also be sideloaded so you can install and use almost all of your favorite Android apps and games.

All in all, the BlackBerry Passport is a solid release. It’s powerful, nicely designed and carries a physical keyboard that we rarely see these days.

If you are willing to shell out P35,790 for a unit, then that should say how much you really like this device.

BlackBerry Passport specs:

4.5-inch IPS (1440 x 1440) display, 453ppi

Corning Gorilla Glass 3

2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core CPU

Adreno 330 GPU

3GB RAM

32GB internal storage

up to 128GB via microSD

13 megapixel AF rear camera w/ OIS, f2.0 lens, LED flash

2 megapixel fixed-focus front camera

4G LTE, HSPA+, 3G

WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

WiFi Direct, Miracast

Bluetooth v4.0, A2DP, LE

NFC

FM Radio

USB 2.0

GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS

3,450mAh Li-ion battery

BlackBerry 10.3 OS

128 x 90.3 x 9.3 mm

196g