BlackBerry Priv Smartphones

I loved my slide-out keyboard on my old Samsung 425g feature-phone. Sadly, physical keyboards have mostly been replaced on smartphones with the on-screen keyboard. This has a slideout keyboard (slides out the bottom, not the side, so it's kind of narrow), which preserves all of that big screen for looking at. However, the keyboard has quirks - such as TWO shift keys, but NO devoted period - you need to alt-m to end your sentence, or two spaces. It's interesting that they allow certain gestures on the physical keyboard as shortcuts, such as swiping left to delete a word. My personal preference would've been a keyboard sliding out horizontally from the side - more keys, bigger keys, would be available. Sadly, they didn't ask me before designing it... :-) The one that I received had already been upgraded to Marshmallow, and is pretty responsive. The camera is not as instananeous as an iphone 6, but it's certainly faster than the old Samsung Kitkat that I had. I haven't used the Hub, which I think native Blackberry users would probably gravitate toward. Being a more recent release of Android, more apps work correctly on it than did on my Kitkat. So far, I haven't run into any serious issues with it. The "manual" that came with it was blurrily printed, just one large sheet folded into small sheets, so the website crackberry may become your go-to site if you buy one of these. A battery-saving tip - if you don't need 2G, turn it off! My battery life increased phenomenally after that.

Ive seen reviews that were mediocre about this phone but being a former owner of Samsung Galaxies (over rated), Kyocera Dura force pro (many issues) and a couple other brands that just didnt thrill me or hold up, this one finally made me happy. I try not to abuse my phones but daily life gets to them sometimes. This phone has now been dropped a few times not onto soft surfaces, it has gotten mildly wet (tho not rated for) and it has been crammed full of apps. So far it works perfectly., The camera is much better than the other brands i mentioned and a few more. The screen isnt the best ive seen but better than many. Colors are vivid and not over saturated and it does a well enough with the camera to scan pages with small print and convert them to pdf with the text still clear., The phone has a pretty decent launcher and all the benefits of blackberry and Android without any issues. No excessive lags even with several programs running background., The battery is reasonable.. can last me the entire day with moderate use, beyond a full day just using the phone for calls and texts and several hours when running all kinds of apps. It also charges fast.. from dead to full charge in 1.5 hrs.. 60% in half an hour., , The sound quality is very loud and clear listening thru built in speakers and actually has noticibly better sound than my Sony xperia when using the headphone jack., , Phone has OTG connection thru USB and it actually works unlike other brands. It is compatible with several adapters and all worked well with HDMI, SD card and mouse and it powers all items by phone., , The slide assy works well and doesnt feel like it will have issues down the line. SD card and SIM card spots are nice to have on top without having a case to open., , Overall, I highly doubt anyone who buys this phone will complain. For the price its available for now, you just cant beat it. This phone can handle just about anything you can expect from a smart phone.

Pros:, Slide out keyboard, Access to battery and SD card for replacements, Android marshmallow platform., Blackberry legendary security, Audio blasts, 13 m pixel camera works well, Blackberry hub is great work asset, , Cons: Had to download some updates to prevent dropping of ATT signal (but all good now)., , I traded up from a Blackberry z10 to the Priv and have no regrets. I like the security of Blackberry phones and I was interested in regaining the physical keyboard. Ironically I find myself not using the slide out keyboard because the touch screen works so well., The sound volume is light years better than the z10 and other phones., Battery: Some other reviews knocked battery life but I'm finding it on par with similar phones., One charge lasts pretty much entire business day with regular use. Overnight without charge uses less than 5% of battery life., , Overall: I highly recommend the Blackberry Priv, especially in the price range. Just be aware that you may need to perform some software updates to prevent the dropped signal situation that took place over 2016-17 winter. I don't believe this was Blackberry's fault but they have seemingly worked it out. My phone is performing flawlessly since the updates installed.

Before this phone I had the blackberry bold 9900, the passport, and the classic. The battery life is OK not worst not best. It's a very nice looking phone and performance is like an 8.5/10 for android. The keyboard is actually not that small like I read it has good feel and I have no problems on it I haven't used the touchkeys yet. the back of it doesn't sink in as much as people said unless u literally want to do that all day lol. With the keyboard out it is a pretty big phone but I prefer this size than the passport but I'm glad they kept the trackpad because I hate touching my screen. It's a good combination of the best of blackberry and android. With the marshmallow update it worked a lot smoother. I'm happy with my purchase. Over all I'd give this phone an 8.5/10 just wish the battery was slightly better but it's good for a days usage if your not a gamer like me. At least it supports quick charge. Good purchase if you can get this phone on less price than retail unlocked it's worth it. I had to go have it since I'm a blackberry lifer lol.

I love this phone!! This is why:, , -Slide out keyboard! With keys that light up and you can change the color of the light with certain keyboard programs., -Big screen that is curved at the edges with a quality display, -Thin so that it feels like I'm holding a web page in my hands, -Fast (I rarely wait for things to load), -Haven't had an issue with space yet, -The edge Blackberry hub is useful, -Some nice design components: the back of the phone is made of a rubbery, nice feeling material, and the edge display when it is charging looks super cool., -I switched from iPhone to Android and so far, LOVE Android. Primarily, I like having more control., , What I don't like:, , -It seems to heat up pretty easily if you're running certain programs, then has issues with freezing up, -The MMS issue: this is well known, idk why Blackberry hasn't fixed it yet. But there are problems receiving MMS and group texts. This can be "fixed" by using the text program Textra. But still unacceptable by Blackberry that there is no fix yet., -Battery runs out quickly out of the box. If you use programs like IFTTT to turn off wifi when you're out and don't keep the screen on super bright, etc. it will last much longer. If you've got the screen on constantly, it will die fast., -Camera is not as good as iPhone (but decent), -Comes with a lot of software that I don't want or use. Still haven't run out of space though so it's more of an annoyance than a major problem., -You can find it here for cheaper than retail, but the retail price is very expensive given it's got the MMS issue, an average battery, and inferior camera., , Basically, you are paying for this phone's badass slide-out keyboard and nice looking design and screen. I am totally happy with that and I still prefer it to my old iPhone. If you don't care about camera, willing to set up stuff yourself to get it running smoothly, this is a great phone.

The PRIV comes with a physical "QWERTY" keyboard, which was my principal reason for getting it--however, the keyboard is so small that it defeats the purpose of having one--despite the phone being very big and cumbersome. To access basic features like texting and voicemail, you have to give Blackberry permission to access your phone numbers, location, calendar and who knows what else, which might be okay except it is also an Android so I have to give all of this same information to Google as well. It also only charges when it is turned off., , Sound quality, reception, speed, battery life all good.

I've had one of these before and the priv i had before never had a battery die as quickly as this one does or have the same charging problems. The downfall to this style phone though is it runs hot, word of advice, leave the slider out to give it more ventilation as the design has no holes in the back for ventilation. As far as this phone, I like the phone but something is up with the company I bought the phone from. This battery takes all day to charge, it feels like it's used when i bought it new when taking that long to charge

please DO NOT buy this phone. i had bought in march 2017 and within a months time, i started complaining for the phone getting HOT faster. vendor not helpful as he says its out of vendor's warranty. and yes, the phone which this vendor sells is brand new sealed pack BUT NOT WITH THE MFG"s warrant. when i check with the mfg they confirmed that the phone which i bought is of 2014 or 2015 mfged and out of warranty. So bottom line, its not with the mfg's standard warranty. vendor was also not helpful and was not helping me for this issue and now i am stuck with the phone. anyways, DO NOT BUY, phone battery becoming extremely hot in very less usage time., Regards, sagar

I like the fact that this phone has a physical keyboard and scroll sensors. It also has edge functions like Samsung phones. The issues that arise with this phone comes from its lack of memory, only 3GB. The applications constantly use up its resources and starts slowing down. After installing all my apps storage also became an issue. The UI needs adjustments. the scrolling list of applications makes it difficult to access apps quickly.

The phone was beautiful and it was running smoothly for about a month when the problem started out of no where., , Problems:, , 1. It would not wake up until holding the power button for 30+ seconds and I had to do this several times a day., 2. On one day the phone shut down automatically and the notification indicator was running all colors of led light (white blue, green, red....), 3. Nothing can stop this and until it ran out of the battery., 4. Recharged the phone after the battery is depleted the same problems revive when the battery level was more then 50%, , I googled the problems and found that many many customers had the exactly same problems, either long hold for the startup or light parade issues. I think Blackberry should recall this phone., , I was trying to contact Blackberry but could not get a hold of any human being. The system kicked me out after they found out my i.m.e.i number did not belong to their direct sale phones. While I was doing my last trial and entered wrongly the i.m.e.i number the computer could not recognize passed me to a "LIVE" person., , After long long conversation and many on-holds they finally said it was the "hardware" problem and I had to go back to my dealer to send back the phone. BLACKBERRY WOULD NOT DEAL WITH CUSTOMERS DIRECTLY UNLESS THEY BUY DIRECTLY FROM BLACKBERRY .COM. This is the worst customer service I have ever had. Most manufacturers want to deal with the customers directly for technical or warranty services.