The fact that I spent a solid five minutes staring at identical side-by-side pictures on both the Priv and S6 then, is testament to how good the Priv’s display is. Its 2K resolution is razor sharp, true blacks give it excellent contrast, and to top it all off, it has deliciously vibrant colours. The Samsung Galaxy S6’s screen is the best smartphone display I’ve ever seen. It’s not a must-have feature, but it’s another little thing that makes the Priv stand out, and I found myself using it a lot while scrolling through Reddit and reading books. You can also flick up on the keys to insert predictions, and swipe back across them to delete words. Like the Passport before it, it doubles up as a trackpad, letting you scroll through home screens, web pages, and books, by swiping your fingers across the keys. The physical keyboard has another benefit too. With it, you have the benefit of on-screen numbers, making for a faster the typing experience than when I’m using a virtual keyboard alone. I have found myself using the physical keyboard for longer emails and notes however. If BlackBerry sold its keyboard on the Google Play Store, it could make a chunk of well-deserved cash.
Blackberry priv phone dialer app software#
What’s so great about the software keyboard? Well, it lets you flick up predictions as you type, learns which words you use, and even tracks where you your fingers tend to land, adjusting the sweet spot for each individual letter, resulting in less mistakes. So much so that I’ve actually used its physical keyboard less than I’d expected. Ironically, the Priv’s default on-screen keyboard works brilliantly. It took a few days for me to get used to it, but I can happily report that BlackBerry has once again delivered a great physical keyboard. You could argue that BlackBerry simply included the keyboard as a way to differentiate the Priv from the competition. Touchscreen keyboards are perfectly suited to modern smartphones, and occasional auto-correct errors aside, I don’t think many of us have been screaming out for a physical keyboard. The first response from all of them, of course, was ‘Why?’
I must admit, I’ve had some fun handing the Priv over to family and friends, before revealing the keyboard with a quick flick, and seeing their reaction. The entire screen slides up with a gentle push of a metal lip that rests just above the bottom speakers. The Priv shares a physical keyboard with these mobile relics, but the handset itself is slim enough that it’s well-disguised. When was the last time you held a slider phone in your hand? For me, it was around 2009, when I waved goodbye to my trust Nokia N95 and migrated to the stunning HTC HD2.