BlackBerry Classic Review: BlackBerry’s Comeback Phone is Pricey, Limited in Nature

Back in the day Blackberry was known for its class and if you had a Blackberry-made device you were perceived as a sophisticated executive. Sadly Blackberry could not continue that trend and now the brand is withering away in the smartphone market.

Even though BlackBerry has lost its "coolness" over the past few years, the company remains committed to developing handsets for its hardcore audience. The BlackBerry Classic, the firm's latest smartphone, is a business-centric handset with a physical keyboard.

PROS

• Solid Design
• Best Physical Keyboard
• Long Battery Life
• Decent Back Camera

CONS

• Heavy and think
• Sluggish Performance
• Missing killer apps

The BlackBerry Classic should be seen as a reincarnated version of the original BlackBerry Bold. Here is the detailed review of the BlackBerry Classic.

Build and Design:

The design of the Classic surely looks premium with a metal band and sealed back. On the downside, though, the Classic is quite thick and heavy for a compact smartphone at 10.2mm and 177g. Just for the sake of comparison the BlackBerry Bold was 11.4mm thick and weighed 107g.

The bottom of the phone is where the speaker, microphone and charging port are housed. On the right-hand side, you'll notice the volume buttons. The nano SIM card slot and microSD card slot are in the side of the handset. On top you have the power button and the headphone jack.

The biggest selling point of the BlackBerry Classic will be its physical keyboard. It's undoubtedly the best physical keyboard available. We found a physical keyboard on the BlackBerry Classic way better over the keyboard of the Passport.

Display:

The BlackBerry Classic comes with a 3.5 inch display. The resolution is 720 by 720 which will give you a pixel density of 294ppi. It's certainly not the highest pixel density panel but for this small screen, it works really well. Images look colourful and the square shaped has wide viewing angles.

Performance:

Under the hood is a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. Despite being stuffed with a dual-core processor, the phone does not lag at all which shows how nicely the ecosystem on this phone works. Memory wise we have 2GB of RAM and 16GB of ROM, which can be further expandable via a microSD card slot.

Certainly, the BlackBerry Classic is primarily designed to - create e-mails, texts and messages. This is definitely not a device to play games.

Talking about the device's speaker quality, there is no depth in the sound. In the meanwhile, call quality was solid.

Camera:

The BlackBerry Classic offers an 8MP rear-facing shooter. The photos are sharp and the colours are nice. The white balance could be improved a bit though.

The secondary camera was also nice and the clarity was good. But again the white balance could be increased.

The supplied camera app is nice and has quite a few different settings like time shift which takes moving pictures and also burst mode. The camera can take 1080p videos at 30fps. Overall, the 8MP camera on the Classic offer details and color accuracy.

Software:

Classic runs BlackBerry OS 10.3.1, the latest version of the BlackBerry 10 operating system. The new iteration of the OS comes with some cosmetic changes as well as functional improvements.

The basic structure remains the same. The UI is essentially divided into the hub, active pane and app panel. The hub stores all sorts of messages and notifications; the active pane shows the last accessed apps in widgetized format, offering information for a glance; and the app list features icons for all installed apps.

You can also download APK (Android app installation) files from the web or install other third party Android app stores such as 1Mobile Market to install Android apps. Android apps that make use of Google services don't work. Also, push notifications don't work unless the Android app is running as an active frame.

The BlackBerry OS is focused on communication and messaging and outperforms other platforms in this department. However, it falls short when it comes to good quality third party native apps.

Battery:

The Classic will last a full day with heavy use on a single charge. You'll be able to make about 6-7 hours of phone calls and browse the web for hours.

The BlackBerry Classic is a device for the diehard BlackBerry fanboys. It's physical keyboard is the best and the same can be said about the battery life. Unfortunately, it feels a bit sluggish over a period of time, all because of its aged processor. Better options are available onto market, so keep searching for the ultimate business phone.

The BlackBerry Classic is priced at Rs. 31,990. The handset is now available for purchase in the Indian market.