Blackberry z30. Detailed review and testing of the BlackBerry Z30. A web browser is a software application for accessing and viewing information on the Internet.

Z10, Q10, Q5 ... Z5? No, Z30! The new Blackberry smartphone should improve the company's position in the market. The weaknesses of the Z10 have been eliminated, so the novelty has every chance of becoming the leader. The built-in hardware of the Z30 is not the newest, but it is not as important as the same ones show. Nokia sales Lumia 520. At the same time, the Z30 is positioned for the high-end segment, at least Blackberry has set the corresponding price. But will the company be able to sell a smartphone with medium equipment at a price of 24.0 thousand rubles or 500 euros?

Hardware and first impressions

The hardware of the smartphone, as we already mentioned, does not seem to be the most recent in our time of Full-HD displays, 8-core processors and 3 GB random access memory... However, for a well-optimized operating system, weak hardware is not a problem, as Microsoft has clearly shown with budget smartphones Windows Phones. In any case, the Z30 has some distinctive features: LTE support (800/900/1800/2600 MHz), 5 "SuperAMOLED display, powerful 2880 mAh battery, micro-SD slot and 2 GB of RAM. The rest of the hardware is no longer so cutting edge: Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 2x1.7 GHz processor, 720p resolution, 8 MP main camera and 2 MP front camera, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and 16 GB of flash memory.

For a complete overview of features, see the last page of the overview.

In terms of build quality and feel, the Z30 proved to be quite convincing, just like the previous models. To a large extent, this is facilitated by the rounded edges, including the pleasant roundness of the back of the smartphone. But we didn't really like the material of the backdrop - it seems "sticky" to the touch. On the other hand, the 5-inch Z30 smartphone won't slip out of your hand.

The back panel of the smartphone is removable, revealing access to the SIM card and micro-SD slot. Still, the battery was removable, like in the Z10 ... However, the battery in the Z30 has an impressive capacity of 2880 mAh, so it will last for a long time.

The right panel of the BlackBerry smartphone contains buttons for adjusting the volume and launching voice control. The left panel houses the micro-USB and micro HDMI ports. On the back of the smartphone, you can see the BlackBerry logo, an 8 MP camera with LED flash and stereo speakers from the top and bottom.

The latter fit perfectly into the design of the smartphone and sound good. Even at full volume, we found no distortion, although the volume level here is not as high as in the competition. Treble and bass are balanced for a positive experience when watching movies or listening to music.

On the top panel you can see the 3.5mm audio jack and the power button. However, to activate, you can use a swipe gesture across the screen, so you don't need to reach the power button on a smartphone with a 5 "screen.

Overall, the Z30 is a well-thought-out and solid smartphone, although it falls short of the competition in hardware. It is a little offensive, considering the price of 24.0 thousand rubles or 500 euros.

What's new in BlackBerry OS 10.2

BlackBerry has been actively tinkering with its new OS, so OS 10.1 has recently been released, containing many improvements and new features. The updated OS 10.2 also contains some innovations. Among other things, notifications appeared, known to us from iOS, Android and Windows Phone - at the top of the screen is displayed preview notifications. BlackBerry calls this feature "Instant Preview," and alerts come with close and quick reply buttons.

One of the main features is the extension of the BlackBerry Hub with the Priority feature. A good example is the Gmail inbox, where important messages will be displayed separately or highlighted (in this case with a red stripe). Conversations with an important interlocutor or messages will also stand out. The Hub will recognize some messages and mark them as important.

Alerts used to be displayed on the lock screen as a symbol, by which you could find out the application and the number of alerts, but nothing more. In OS 10.2, you can tap on the icons and find out, for example, the sender of the email and the subject of the letter. It's bad that there is no special unlock gesture that would allow you to go directly to the corresponding letter in the Hub.

In addition, some applications have been improved. Added the "native" Evernote application, the settings application now works much faster and visually fits into the system better, you can now set several time recordings in the alarm clock. Finally, Android Jelly Bean apps up to version 4.2.2 are supported. Many other features (including minor changes) are collected on the Polish website BBNews.

Camera

The Z10 received some pretty serious criticism for its camera quality. For a high-end device, the picture quality could only be called satisfactory. The camera in the new flagship has been enhanced with an 8MP BSI sensor and a five-element f / 2.2 lens. But the software has remained the same (at least in basic functions). Finger change focus and time-lapse photography are known from previous models.

In the case of the Z30, the results are not outstanding, but the improvement is noticeable immediately. We recommend that you evaluate the quality yourself by looking at all test photos in original resolution in our SkyDrive account.

Display, battery life, tests

The display was supposed to be one of the advantages of the Z30. Indeed, the 5 "SuperAMOLED display looks impressive. However, given the price and current competitors on the market, the resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels can be called low, it results in a not very high pixel density of 294 ppi, but from normal viewing distance the picture appears to be quite sharp and clear.

At the same time, if you put a Full-HD display with the same diagonal next to it, then the Z30 will already be less clear. The average maximum display brightness is 292 cd / m², which can be called quite a decent level for AMOLED. Since the black depth of this technology is difficult to determine, we get almost infinite contrast. As a result, the screen is easy to read even outdoors on a bright sunny day.

The 2880mAh battery complements the economical SuperAMOLED display, considering the average hardware we get a decent battery life of 10 hours 45 minutes.

This time it was decided to bet on big screen and new design... The novelty was named BlackBerry Z30.

BlackBerry, however, did not create a tablet phone, which many expected to see, and decided to choose a moderate option: the screen of the BlackBerry Z30 has a diagonal of 5 inches, so it would be more logical to attribute it to the niche of top-end smartphones, and not to devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. Let's see on the characteristics of the BlackBerry Z30.

• Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (MSM8960T) @ 1.7 GHz (2 Krait 200 cores)
• Adreno 320
• Operating system BlackBerry 10.2
• Super AMOLED touchscreen display, 5 ″, 1280 × 720
• Random access memory (RAM) 2 GB, inner memory 16 GB
• MicroSD card slot up to 64GB
• Communication GSM GPRS / EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• Communication 3G UMTS HSPA + 850/1700/1900/2100 MHz
• LTE 800/900/1800/2100/2600 (2600/800 FDD are used on the territory of the Russian Federation)
• HSPA + 21 Mbps
• Bluetooth 4.0, NFC
• Support for video output via Micro-HDMI
• Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n (support for 5GHz band)
• GPS, A-GPS, Glonass
• Accelerometer, gyroscope, compass
• 8 megapixel camera with support for shooting video Full HD
• 2 megapixel camera (front) with support for 720p video transmission
• Li-ion battery 2880 mAh
• Dimensions 140.7 x 72 x 9.4 mm
• Weight 170 g

The weak points of the smartphone include, first of all, the amount of internal memory, as well as a somewhat outdated SoC, which looks rather strange in a top device. Otherwise, everything is fine, but again, nothing outstanding. Let's compare the specs of the BlackBerry Z30 with the Samsung Galaxy S4, which has a similarly sized Super AMOLED screen, and the BlackBerry Z10, which is now available at a deep discount.

	BlackBerry Z30	BlackBerry Z10	Samsung Galaxy S4
Screen	5 ″, Super AMOLED, 720 × 1280, 294 ppi	4.2 ″, IPS, 768 × 1280, 356 ppi	4.99 ″, Super AMOLED, 1920 × 1080, 441 ppi
SoC (processor)	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro @ 1.7 GHz (2 Krait 200 cores)	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus @ 1.5 GHz (2 Krait cores) or TI OMAP 4470 @ 1.5GHz (2x Cortex-A9)	Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (4x ARM Cortex-A15 @ 1.4GHz and 4x ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.2GHz) or Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T @ 1.9 GHz (4 Krait cores)
GPU	Adreno 320	Adreno 225 or PowerVR SGX544	PowerVR SGX544MP3 or Adreno 320
Flash memory	16 GB	16 GB	from 16 to 64 GB
Connectors		Micro-USB, Micro-HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack	Micro-USB, 3.5mm headphone jack
Memory card support	microSD (up to 64 GB)	microSD (up to 32GB)	microSD (up to 64 GB)
RAM	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB
Cameras		rear (8 megapixel; video shooting 1920 × 1080), front (2 megapixel, shooting and transferring video 720p)	rear (13 Mp; video shooting 1080p) and front (2 Mp)
Support for LTE networks (frequency bands, MHz)	800 / 900 / 1800 / 2100 / 2600	optional (700/850/1700/1900)	1800/2100/2600/800/850/900 (Snapdragon 600 only)
Battery capacity (mAh)	2880	1800	2600
Operating system	BlackBerry 10.2	BlackBerry 10 (update to version 10.2 available)	Google Android 4.2.2
Dimensions (mm)	141 × 72 × 9.4	130 × 66 × 9	137 × 70 × 7.9
Weight (g)	170	138	130
Average price (J.Market)
BlackBerry Z30 offers

The undoubted advantage of the Samsung Galaxy S4 is the high-resolution screen (Full HD), while the BlackBerry Z30, with the same diagonal and matrix, has a resolution of only 720p. In terms of performance, the Galaxy S4 also looks more communicative. Camera resolution, maximum internal memory, thickness, weight - all the advantages of the Samsung Galaxy S4.

If we compare two BlackBerry models with each other, then one cannot fail to notice that with a larger screen diagonal, the resolution even slightly decreased, so that the density of points in the BlackBerry Z30 turned out to be lower than that of the BlackBerry Z10. But the SoC in the new product is more modern (although far from top-end) and the battery is much more capacious (as we remember, the battery life was the weak point of the BlackBerry Z10).

Well, now it's time to take a closer look at the smartphone.

Packaging and equipment

The smartphone is sold in a tall black box. Inside - mini booklets with user manual, USB cable, Charger and a BlackBerry Premium Stereo Handset with two sets of additional earpieces.

The sound quality of the headset is not bad (although the bass is still rather dry and not deep enough), but the headphones themselves are of a very unusual shape. Perhaps, if you adapt and understand how exactly they should be put into the ears, it will be convenient, but I still did not understand.

Design

BlackBerry smartphones have always had their own special style: strict and "expensive". And the new line of smartphones was able to maintain this quality (with the exception of the mid-budget BlackBerry Q5).

BlackBerry Z30 design combines elements of BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10. From the first - the general appearance (especially the front view, almost indistinguishable from the BlackBerry Z10, if you do not take into account the size). From the second - the material of the back surface.

The back cover of the BlackBerry Z30, like the BlackBerry Q10, has a coating that is very similar in tactile feel and appearance to the Kevlar used in Motorola Razr smartphones (for example, the Motorola Razr HD). In general, the design of the BlackBerry Z30 has quite a lot in common with the Motorola Razr HD, but this does not prevent the BlackBerry from having its own rather individual look. The important components of this individuality are the silvery edging "like metal" and the illusion of the screen bulge: at the edges the screen surface is slightly rounded.

The back cover is removable, but the battery is not removable (unlike the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10), which is a clear disadvantage for a business device. Removing the cover, we get access to the Micro-SIM and microSD slots, they go to the left side, but are inaccessible when the cover is closed.

On the left side, but regardless of the position of the cover, there are Micro-HDMI and Micro-USB connectors.

On the right side, we see the volume down and volume up buttons, and between them - the voice control start button. Everything here is similar to the BlackBerry Z10.

The bottom edge is empty, but there are two speaker holes near it on the back cover. Another speaker hole is located near the top edge, so the smartphone provides good (as far as possible, in principle, for built-in smartphone speakers) stereo sound.

Also on the top edge we see a minijack (3.5 mm) for a headset and a Power button. All buttons are not pressed very tightly, but it cannot be said that they are loose. The sound when pressed is distinct.

The smartphone is not bad in the hand, although it is clear that this is rather a solution for a man's hand of medium or large sizes, rather than for a woman's. The build quality is decent and the overall design makes a good impression. Perhaps it is difficult to fall in love with it, it is difficult to make an unambiguous choice in its favor only on the basis of the design, but the fact that the design will not be a disadvantage when choosing (as, for example, in the BlackBerry Q5) is undoubtedly. It's a pity that the battery was made non-removable.

Screen

The BlackBerry Z30 is equipped with a 5-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1280 × 720 pixels. On the this moment it is the largest screen of any BlackBerry smartphone. A detailed screen test was carried out by Aleksey Kudryavtsev, editor of the "Projectors and TV" section. Below is his conclusion.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface, resistant to scratches. Based on the reflection of objects, there is a very effective antiglare filter, surpassing the Google Nexus 7 in reducing the brightness of reflection. There is no doubling of reflected objects, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen. On the outer surface of the screen there is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (very effective, not worse than that of Google Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed much easier, and appear at a slower speed than in the case of ordinary glass.

There is a non-disconnectable automatic brightness control by the light sensor (it is located on the front panel to the left of the loudspeaker slit). This function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider. If it is set to 100%, then in complete darkness, the automatic brightness adjustment function decreases the brightness to 30 cd / m2 (acceptable), in an office illuminated with artificial light, the brightness rises to 150 cd / m2 (normal), in a very bright environment (corresponds to the lighting outdoors on a clear day, but no direct sunlight) is set to 255 cd / m². If the brightness slider is at 50%, the values ​​are 15, 80 and 255 cd / m². If at 0% - 12, 30 and 200 cd / m².

In terms of numbers, the maximum brightness is not very high, but given that the smaller the white area on this screen, the brighter the white color (the above values ​​are obtained when displaying the white field in full screen), and the high efficiency of the antiglare filter, on a sunny day outside screen readability will remain at an acceptable level. In complete darkness, the brightness decreases to a comfortable value. However, at very low brightness, modulation appears with a frequency of 240 Hz. The figure below shows the dependence of the brightness of the white field (vertical axis) on time (horizontal axis) for three brightness values:

It can be seen that at high and medium brightness, there is virtually no modulation, but at the minimum brightness, the relative modulation amplitude is high, therefore, image flickering can be seen in the test for the presence of a stroboscopic effect or simply with fast eye movement. Depending on individual sensitivity, such flickering can cause increased fatigue.

This smartphone uses an OLED matrix - an active matrix with organic light-emitting diodes. A full-color image is created using subpixels of three colors - red (R), green (G) and blue (B) in equal numbers, which is confirmed by a fragment of a micrograph:

We observed a similar "structure" of the screen, for example, in the case of the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini smartphone.

The screen has good viewing angles. True, white when deviated to relatively large angles acquires a noticeable bluish tint, but black remains black at all angles (although reflection from black areas at some angles has a blue "metallic" tint). At the same time, black is so black that the contrast parameter is simply inapplicable in this case. When viewed from a perpendicular view, the uniformity of the white field is excellent. The switching of the state of the matrix elements is actually performed instantly, but at the turn-on front there may be a step (or two) with a width of 16.7 ms (corresponds to a screen refresh rate of 60 Hz). Below is a graph of brightness (vertical axis) versus time (horizontal axis), obtained in the transition from dark gray to light gray (25-75) and from black to dark gray (0-25) and back (vertical scale differs):

In some conditions, the presence of such a step can lead to trails trailing behind moving objects, but in normal use these artifacts are almost impossible to see. Quite the opposite - dynamic scenes in films on OLED screens are distinguished by high definition and even some "jerky" movements.

The gamma curve plotted at 32 points did not reveal any blockage either in highlights or shadows, and the exponent of the approximating power function is 1.92, which is slightly lower than the standard value of 2.2, while the real gamma curve slightly deviates from the power dependence:

Note that due to the dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the displayed image (the brightness decreases in bright images in the middle), the obtained dependence of brightness on the hue (gamma curve) does not correspond to the gamma curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential output grayscale to full screen.

The color gamut is much wider than sRGB:

The spectra show that the primary colors are well separated:

As a result, the colors on this screen are oversaturated and somewhat unnatural. The color temperature balance is good - shades of gray have a color temperature close to 6500 K, which changes little over the entire part of the gray scale that matters (the range close to black can be ignored, since the color rendition in it is not so important, and the error in measuring color characteristics is high ):

The deviation from the spectrum of an absolutely black body (delta E) is less than 10, which is considered a good indicator for a non-professional device, and also varies slightly from shade to shade:

As we have shown in comparative testing, OLED screens, despite not very high brightness, retain excellent readability in all conditions, and even when viewed from large angles. They are also very economical. All of this, of course, also applies to the BlackBerry Z30's OLED screen. Another advantage of the screen is an effective anti-glare filter, a very good oleophobic coating, adequate automatic brightness adjustment and excellent color balance. Unfortunately, the manufacturer did not take care of adjusting the OLED color saturation downward, as a result, recognizable colors (for example, skin tones) in photos and videos look a little unnatural, oversaturated.

Platform and performance

The BlackBerry Z30 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC. By modern standards, this is a mid-range solution that includes only two Krait 200 CPU cores (with a frequency of 1.7 GHz each) and an Adreno 320 graphics accelerator. But the BlackBerry Z30 has 2 GB of RAM. Considering the multitasking of the BlackBerry 10 OS, this really matters. However, we see the same 2 GB in all other smartphones based on this OS, even in the BlackBerry Q5. But let's see what kind of performance the new product will demonstrate.

For obvious reasons, we could not test the performance of the BlackBerry Z30 using our standard method: there are practically no benchmarks for the BlackBerry 10 OS yet. We found only the Geekbench 2 multiplatform benchmark in the BlackBerry World store. In addition, of course, we ran browser tests: SunSpider 1.0, Kraken Benchmark and Octane Benchmark. The results are summarized in the table.

Here, of course, it is worth making a reservation that the browser itself, which is different in BlackBerry 10 than in Android, strongly influences the results in browser tests. But these results give a general idea of ​​performance: it is obvious that the BlackBerry flagship is very far from the Samsung Galaxy S4.

Tests have shown that the BlackBerry Z30 is the most productive smartphone at the moment on operating system BlackBerry 10. However, it cannot compete with top-end Android devices. This result, however, is rather arbitrary, since the performance of the Z30 is quite sufficient for its tasks, as well as for games available in BlackBerry World: Asphalt 7, N.O.V.A. 3, Modern Combat 4. As for the prospects for future game projects, this process will be hindered not so much by a lack of performance as by the dubious prospects of the platform itself. Let's be honest: no matter how cute and interesting BlackBerry 10 is as such, games for it will be developed and optimized last (after iOS, Android and Windows Phone).

So if the ability to play modern games on your smartphone is really important for you, you should choose something other than the BlackBerry Z30. But if you perceive the opportunity to play as an additional option, and the poor choice of games in BlackBerry World will be enough for you, then you may well stop at the BlackBerry Z30.

HDMI interface test

Additionally, Alexey Kudryavtsev tested the HDMI interface. To do this, we used an LG IPS237L monitor and a simple Micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter cable. The operating mode is 1080p @ 60 Hz. When the smartphone is in landscape orientation, the image is displayed on the monitor screen in landscape orientation, while the image on the monitor is inscribed in the boundaries of the screen and represents exact copy smartphone screen with an actual resolution equal to the smartphone screen resolution - 1280 by 720 pixels. When the smartphone is in portrait orientation, the image is displayed on the monitor screen in portrait orientation, while the image is inscribed in height, black fields are displayed on the right and left, and the actual resolution is already lower than 720 by 1280 pixels.

The video output by means of a standard player deserves a special description. To begin with, using a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see material Testing methods for video playback and display devices. Version 1), we checked how the video is displayed on the screen of the smartphone itself. Screenshots with an exposure of 1 s helped to determine the nature of the frame output of video files with different parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p) and 1920 by 1080 (1080p) pixels) and the frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 frames / With). The results of this (block titled as " Screen") And the following test are summarized in the table:

File	Uniformity	Skips
Screen
watch-1920x1080-60p.mp4	not reproduced
watch-1920x1080-50p.mp4	not reproduced
watch-1920x1080-30p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1920x1080-25p.mp4	Okay	No
watch-1920x1080-24p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1280x720-60p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1280x720-50p.mp4	Okay	No
watch-1280x720-30p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1280x720-25p.mp4	Okay	No
watch-1280x720-24p.mp4	Okay	No
HDMI (monitor)
watch-1920x1080-60p.mp4	not reproduced
watch-1920x1080-50p.mp4	not reproduced
watch-1920x1080-30p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1920x1080-25p.mp4	Okay	No
watch-1920x1080-24p.mp4	Okay	No
watch-1280x720-60p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1280x720-50p.mp4	Okay	No
watch-1280x720-30p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1280x720-25p.mp4	Great	No
watch-1280x720-24p.mp4	Okay	No

Note: If both the "Uniformity" and "Gaps" columns have "green" ratings, this means that, most likely, when watching movies, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and skipping of frames will not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing experience. "Red" marks indicate possible problems with the playback of the corresponding files.

According to the criterion for outputting frames, the quality of video playback on the screen of the smartphone itself is high, since frames (or groups of frames) are displayed with a more or less uniform alternation of intervals and there are no frame drops. However, the uniform alternation of frames is a relatively unstable state, since some external and internal background processes result in intermittent failure of correct frame-to-frame interleaving and even skipping of single frames in the case of 720p 60fps files. When playing video files with a resolution of 1280 by 720 (720p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed along the edges of the screen, one to one pixel by pixel in the vertical direction, but horizontally, the picture is stretched by a couple of pixels, so the real clarity is slightly lower than the original resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen does not correspond to the standard range of 16-235, as the shadows display several shades "blacker than black", and the highlights display all shades "whiter than white". As a result, in the case of a typical video file, the image contrast will be underestimated.

When playing video files with a resolution of 720p (1280 by 720 pixels) on the screen of the connected software HDMI monitor and the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the border of the screen while maintaining the true proportions, and the resolution corresponds to the original resolution (with the landscape orientation of the smartphone screen). The brightness range displayed on the monitor is almost equal to the standard range of 16-235 - in the shadows and highlights, all gradations of shades are displayed, but in the highlights, several shades "whiter than white" are also displayed. The results of the tests on the monitor are shown in the table above in the block “ HDMI (monitor)". The output quality is high.

It turns out that connecting to external monitors, televisions and projectors can be used for gaming, watching movies, displaying web pages, and other activities that benefit from the exponential increase in screen size.

Communication functions

Judging by the available information, all BlackBerry Z30 smartphones have LTE support, although when buying a device abroad, you should pay attention to the supported ranges (they are different for different countries). We tested the STA100-2 model, which supports the Russian LTE frequency bands.

LTE (4G) operation was tested on the Megafon network. LTE works, connection speed is normal and depends on the specific location. When you are online, you will see a 4G icon in the upper right corner. However, for this you need to turn off Wi-Fi.

To quality telephone connection We had no complaints, but there were complaints about Wi-Fi. The smartphone does not catch a medium-strength signal in the best way and takes a long time to connect to such networks.

Operating system and applications

The smartphone runs on the new BlackBerry 10.2 operating system. We have dedicated BlackBerry 10, examining its features using the example of the BlackBerry Z10. Almost all of what was said there is also true for the BlackBerry Z30. Therefore, we will not repeat the story about the OS and restrict ourselves to screenshots of the desktop.

Due to the larger display area, one row of icons more fits on the screen. In addition, the virtual keyboard which is very convenient.

Cameras

As befits all modern smartphones, BlackBerry Z30 is equipped with two cameras: front and rear. Permission front camera- 2MP, and it can support 720p video transmission. We checked the video link with Skype applications available in BlackBerry World. There were no problems, video and sound were transmitted normally.

The main (rear) camera takes photos with a resolution of 8 megapixels. The pictures taken on it are commented on by Anton Soloviev.

	The sharpness of the tile is not bad, but the grass begins to merge rather quickly with removal.
	The foliage is heavily blurred. Only the foregrounds are worked out relatively well.
	The numbers of the nearest cars would have been distinguishable if they had not moved, as were the inscriptions on the poles.	1/2. As the lighting deteriorates, the sharpness drops, but the overall result, oddly enough, gets better.
	1/4. With further deterioration, the camera gives a very acceptable result.
	1/4 flash. The flash does little to improve the situation.
	0. In the absence of lighting, the camera does not cope.
	0 flash. The flash works as before.

As you can see from the graph, the camera does a good job at first. The flash works correctly, but it is weak, therefore, it does not allow to achieve the original resolution of the pictures.

The rear camera can shoot 1080p 30 fps video, but the default is 720p. Here is a video with the default settings. The video quality is decent, typical of most smartphones.

The rear camera of the BlackBerry Z30 looks damp. At first glance, it seems that she has good abilities, and she gives good results in laboratory tests. But upon closer examination of the most ordinary field shots, significant shortcomings become noticeable: blurred areas in the image, areas of blur, which probably appear due to long exposures due to low photosensitivity, out-of-focus corners. Noises do not show up strongly, so it is not clear why the camera should be afraid of average values ​​of light sensitivity.

Overall, the camera is not that bad. Perhaps some software tweak will help it get better. So far, it does not stand out in anything special, except, perhaps, a good exposure.

Autonomous work

As we recall, one of our main complaints about the BlackBerry Z10 was the short battery life. In a typical scenario of using BlackBerry devices (a lot of mail, SMS messages, telephone conversations, no games and videos), the smartphone did not even live to the end of the day.

The BlackBerry Q10 had a slightly better situation, the BlackBerry Q5 was worse than the Q10, but better than the Z10. And now we were able to get acquainted with the BlackBerry Z30, which has the most capacious battery of all BlackBerry 10 devices.

Coupled with an economical AMOLED screen, this gives a really decent battery life. Under standard scenarios of use, a smartphone will live for more than one day. If we take specific modes, then playing a 3D game will be possible for 5 hours (with the brightness set at 100 cd / m²).

Here, however, there is a nuance that prevented us from making accurate measurements. The fact is that the BlackBerry Z30 has a non-switchable automatic screen brightness adjustment. Therefore, it is impossible to accurately set the brightness. But the big picture is clear.

conclusions

The BlackBerry Z30 smartphone is the swan song of the once great company. It's a decent quality product, but it doesn't have a single killer feature that would make people indifferent to BlackBerry buy this device. Today you won't surprise anyone with a five-inch screen, the design is pleasant, but not amazing, the technical characteristics are sufficient for comfortable work, but again nothing outstanding or even just top-end.

At the same time, the prices for the new device are more than the top ones. At least in Russia, where the BlackBerry Z30 is still being imported according to the "gray" scheme. Western prices are difficult to judge, because BlackBerry mainly distributes the novelty through the operators offering the contract. Nevertheless, the opportunity to purchase a smartphone not tied to the operator exists - in Europe it will cost about 20 thousand rubles (plus shipping), in Germany - about 22 thousand (plus shipping). In Russia, if there is any reasonable guarantee, it will not be possible to buy such a device cheaper than 25 thousand rubles. And for this price you can buy a top-end modern Android smartphone; the same Samsung Galaxy S4 is now on average even cheaper.

In general, we come to a paradoxical conclusion: the smartphone is good, and it has almost no serious flaws (except for the specific features of the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which, however, can just as well be attributed to the advantages). But there is also nothing that would make it possible to prefer it to competitors. The BlackBerry Z30 should definitely appeal only to BlackBerry fans - if, of course, they have not yet had a BlackBerry Z10 or BlackBerry Q10. In the latter case, they are unlikely to want to change their devices, although, say, the BlackBerry Z10 loses to the new product in almost all respects - and yet this is not enough to change the smartphone so quickly.

Therefore, the main audience for the BlackBerry Z30 will most likely be technologists and IT collectors, because this is so far the best touchphone based on the BlackBerry 10, and besides, there is every chance that it will be the last flagship novelty in the history of the glorious BlackBerry company.

Everyone who is interested in news portals knows about the problems of BlackBerry, but this, apparently, does not prevent it from releasing interesting smartphones... But do users really need it?
Once the Canadian company BlackBerry was the best in its niche and dictated the fashion for smartphones for business for a very long time, but then touch giants like Samsung came to the market and buyers quickly moved to other gadgets, and BlackBerry began to have huge financial problems - even the new BlackBerry Z10 gadget could not save the company from losses, and this was supposed to be the company's flagship. I am glad that even despite its problems, the company is still trying to get out of the stupor and is releasing on the market another smartphone of its own, which, in terms of characteristics, is already more similar to a real competitor, but, unfortunately, not on the market of Samsung, Sony and Apple. ... Even with all its functions, the phone does not pull well-known competitors. Yes, and the price has not yet been set for the phone, and if it is high, users will simply again go to the shops of Koreans.

Display

But let's not talk about the sad things - the phone has many advantages that can interest businessmen and people who just want something new and at the same time reliable as Nokia once was. For example, the display here reaches 5 inches - already a very good indicator, given that this particular diagonal is currently the most pleasant to use. The display type is Super AMOLED, not IPS, as everyone expected, and this is also very encouraging - the colors will be more realistic, there will be real black, and the brightness and viewing angles of both types of displays are almost equally high. The resolution is 720x1280, and here many will start pointing fingers at LG with the words “they have FullHD”. Yes, this is not the largest resolution on the market, but the human eye will still not notice the difference between HD and FullHD, and the first diagonal draws less energy. An extra hour of battery life is more important than unnecessary show-offs, right?

Iron

The novelty was stuffed with quite powerful, although not the coolest, iron. There is a Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, which was top-end a year or two ago, with two processing cores and a clock speed of 1.7 gigahertz. For everyday tasks, the power is more than enough, but still it is a little upsetting that this is not a Snapdragon 600 or 800 - then the phone would definitely be a favorite of the public. All graphic tasks are handled by the Adreno 320 controller, and two gigabytes of RAM help the overall performance of the phone. Quite a decent set for any kind of tasks, including resource-intensive games, if they ever will be on this platform. For these games, there is 16 gigabytes of internal memory and a slot for a memory card up to 64 gigabytes.

Buns

The phone will be primarily appreciated by buyers from the United States - the gadget has received a 4G Internet module, and in the United States, the LTE connection is the best in the world. On this super-fast Internet, you can talk in video calls using a 2-megapixel camera that shoots video with a resolution of 720p, and if you want to upload a photo of your workplace, there is an 8-megapixel rear camera with f / 2.2 optics and shooting in 1080p mode. Not a camera phone, of course, but it will be possible to capture important moments in life. And of course Bluetooth 4.0 with NFC.

Outcome

This gadget undoubtedly stirred up the mobile phone market - everyone thought that BlackBerry couldn't do anything else, and there was such a release. And even if the phone does not have top-end hardware, there are many interesting functions like a hub and very comfortable keyboard, there is a 2500 mAh battery, allowing the phone to work for two days in stable load mode, two very good cameras... The main thing is that the price of the phone is not too high, otherwise the gadget can easily drown in the competition of cheaper and more recognizable iPhones or Samsung buyers.

Recently, the Canadian telecommunications giant Research In Motion (RIM), which was founded back in 1984, is going through hard times and is trying to regain its lost positions in the smartphone market, where Android and iOS devices now rule the score. To achieve this, the company acquired QNX Software Systems (the developer of the QNX OS), as well as the manufacturer software Cellmania. As a result of fruitful work in January 2013, the BlackBerry 10 operating system was presented, as well as the first smartphones based on it - BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10. In addition, the company announced a renaming - now it is called BlackBerry, like its world famous brand. It should be noted that the miracle did not happen, and the new smartphones could not live up to the hopes placed on them, so the company ended the second quarter of 2013 with significant losses.

Despite this, BlackBerry continues its efforts. As a result, at the end of 2013, new flagship, which has received an updated design and an enlarged display. The smartphone was named We suggest starting a review of new items with technical characteristics:

Manufacturer	Blackberry
Type, form factor	Smartphone, candy bar
Communication standards			850/900/1800/1900 MHz
			800/850/900/1900/2100 MHz
			800/900/1800/2600 MHz
High speed data transfer	GPRS (32-48 Kbps), EDGE (236 Kbps), HSDPA + (up to 21.6 Mbps), HSUPA (up to 5.76 Mbps), LTE Cat.3 (100 Mbps)
SIM card type
CPU	Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro (MSM8960T): 2 Krait 200 cores, up to 1.7GHz, 1MB L2 cache
Graphics adapter	Qualcomm Adreno 320, up to 400 MHz
	Super AMOLED, 5 ", 1280 x 720 pixels (295 ppi), touchscreen, capacitive, multi-touch (up to 10 touches), protective glass Corning Gorilla Glass
RAM
Card reader	microSD (up to 32GB)
Interfaces	1 x 3.5mm audio mini-jack
Multimedia	Acoustics
	Sound processing
	Microphone
	The main	8 MP, 5 elements with an aperture of f2.2, back-illumination of the matrix, autofocus, LED flash, video recording in 1080p (30 FPS)
	Frontal	2 MP, 720p video recording
Communication capabilities		802.11a / b / g / n 2.4 / 5 GHz
	Proximity sensor, light sensor, LED indicator
Battery	Li-ion: 2880 mAh
Charger	European: PSM04E-050QRIM, power 3.75 W (5 V @ 0.75 A); American: RIM-C-0004ADUGB 4.25 W (5 V @ 0.85 A)
	140.7 x 72 x 9.4 mm
Operating system	BlackBerry OS 10.2.1.3175
Official guarantee	12 months
Products webpage

Delivery and packaging

The novelty comes in a relatively small box made of thick cardboard, which has a rather stylish design with a predominance of dark colors. It contains a minimum of useful information: the name, a couple of logos and technical specifications of the delivery. With its restraint, the packaging hints that this is a business-class device.

The complete set of new items includes:

• user manual;
• safety information booklet;
• two chargers: European (PSM04E-050QRIM power 3.75 W (5 V @ 0.75 A)) and American (RIM-C-0004ADUGB power 4.25 W (5 V @ 0.85 A));
• USB cable ↔ micro-USB for charging and PC connection;
• a pretty good BlackBerry Premium Stereo Headset (HDW-49299-001) with in-ear headphones and three pairs of replaceable silicone pads.

Appearance, arrangement of elements

Visually, the BlackBerry Z30 has a very pleasant, stylish and sophisticated design, which is well remembered due to its pleasant tactile sensations. Before us is a classic rectangular design with the most smoothed edges, absolutely devoid of sharp edges. Most of the front side is occupied by the display, which is protected by tempered glass with small glossy inserts on the sides. The glass is figured and has smooth and very comfortable rounding at the side edges. It is not protected by physical bumpers, so it is undesirable to lay the smartphone face down.

At the top are located: the earpiece mesh, the front camera, light sensors (always working) and proximity, as well as a four-color (red, yellow, green and blue) event indicator. Below the attention is drawn to the BlackBerry logo and a small microphone hole.

Along the contour of the case, as well as in the lower part of the front panel, there is a nice matte silver plastic insert. It looks and feels like anodized aluminum. In this case, high quality paint is used, but if you use your smartphone carelessly, scuffs and chips may appear.

At the top there is a universal audio jack (mini-jack 3.5 mm) and a power / lock button. It should be noted that to unlock the smartphone it is not necessary to reach up to the top, but you can simply swipe up from the bottom edge of the display, which in practice is a very convenient and fast way. The bottom end is devoid of physical keys or connectors.

On the right side of the BlackBerry Z30 case there are two holes for microphones and three buttons: the extreme ones for adjusting the volume, and the central one for calling the voice assistant. While watching video and listening to audio, the center button acts as a pause / play button, which is very convenient, especially if the smartphone is locked.

On the left side there are two connectors: micro-HDMI and micro-USB.

The back side is presented in the form of a removable cover, which fits extremely tightly to the body, so at first it seems to be an integral part of it. It is made of polycarbonate, which is reinforced with carbon fiber throughout the central part and is very similar to carbon.

The outer part of the lid, to remove which requires considerable effort and a little ingenuity, has a very pleasant velvet soft-touch coating. It practically does not collect fingerprints and prevents the smartphone from slipping out even from wet palms. Here are the stereo speakers (one at the bottom and one at the top), as well as a camera module and a single-section LED flash.

There are two spring-loaded connectors under the cover: Micro-SIM and microSD. The battery is non-removable, but of a fairly large capacity. In addition, attention is drawn to the inscription, which informs the country of the manufacturer - Mexico, and not the usual PRC.

The BlackBerry Z30 fits perfectly into the average palm, even though it uses a 5-inch screen. However, the smartphone does not seem large at all, on the contrary, it is quite compact (especially when compared directly with some 5-inch devices). Its dimensions are 141 × 72 × 9.4 mm.

The novelty is assembled just perfectly: there are no gaps or backlash. The smartphone does not bend or change its geometry under moderate torsion, and the glass does not squeeze. There are no stains on the screen either. One remark: the weight of the new item is 170 grams, which is noticeably more than in the main competitors. However, this weight is very pleasant and gives the impression of a really high-quality device, without burdening the pockets.

In general, the BlackBerry Z30 is a high-quality product with a solid and modern design, as well as well-placed controls, which causes only positive emotions from working with it. I would especially like to note the materials of the case and the presence of a micro-HDMI output.

Display

The BlackBerry Z30 smartphone is equipped with a Super AMOLED sensor matrix with RGB S-Stripe subpixel placement (3 subpixels / pixel, not PenTile), made without an air gap (OGS technology). The screen itself is protected by tempered Corning Gorilla Glass, the exact version of which the manufacturer does not indicate. For additional protection of the glass, there is a fairly well-glued factory film. It is thin and provides an overall pleasant tactile feel and good protection against minor scratches. The glass itself has a wonderful oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating, guaranteeing a fairly good and easy finger glide. There is also a good anti-reflective coating.

The resolution of the 5-inch display is 1280 x 720 (HD). The pixel density is 295 ppi. Although this figure is not the highest, the image detail is more than sufficient.

Viewing angles are excellent, and the display itself does not turn green in case of deviations (which is not surprising, since the number of green subpixels is not doubled). The color rendition is also at a high level, so the picture is perceived very natural, largely due to the infinite contrast (deep black color, since the pixels are simply not highlighted in this case). The color saturation is slightly overestimated, which, in principle, is characteristic of Super AMOLED displays, but not much. The brightness is quite high, but not a record one: information can be viewed on a bright sunny day. The minimum border is somewhat overestimated, but it remains quite comfortable for working in the dark. The brightness is automatically adjusted. For this, there is a light sensor that does not turn off.

The touch pad is capable of handling up to 10 simultaneous touches. It has very good sensitivity (it does not respond to pressing with gloves), and all actions are processed without any delay from the sensor.

In general, according to subjective impressions, the BlackBerry Z30 display can be attributed to the advantages of the novelty. The resulting picture is pleasant and detailed, with good brightness, but with somewhat oversaturated colors. Plus, OLED displays are known for lower power consumption than other options, which is an added plus.

Sound

As already mentioned, the novelty is equipped with two speakers. They are located at the bottom and top of the rear of the case and are somewhat displaced closer to the ends. Due to this arrangement, the sound is not muffled, even if the gadget is lying on a horizontal surface. And with the landscape orientation of the smartphone, a perceptible stereo sound is created.

The sound itself is quite loud and very high quality. In our opinion, the maximum possible for mobile device frequency range: pleasant low frequencies are present, and rather soft bass; well-detailed mids, and also absolutely do not squeak high (they are just sonorous). In general, watching movies directly from your smartphone is a pleasure. You can also listen to music without any problems. There is practically no desire to connect headphones.

The regular BlackBerry Premium Stereo Headset (HDW-49299-001) is quite comfortable thanks to the replaceable silicone pads that are included in the package. The sound reproduced in them is loud and is characterized by relatively good quality.

The earpiece speaker is also pretty good. It is moderately loud and provides pleasant sound detail. The reproduced voice is clear and free of background noise.

Camera

BlackBerry Z30, like most modern smartphones, equipped with two digital cameras. The front module has a 2 megapixel sensor and is capable of recording video in 720p format. You cannot take photographs while filming here.

The camera does not stand out in any way, but its capabilities are quite enough for video communication and self-portraits. The main disadvantage is the lack of autofocus, since it is fixed here. The image detail is good. The viewing angle is not very large, but it is sufficient and does not cause complaints.

The main camera received an 8-megapixel module with a reverse illumination of the matrix and a five-element lens with a fairly high-aperture optics with an aperture of f2.2 and an automatic focusing system. Photos have a resolution of 3264 × 2448. Video is shot at a resolution of 1920 × 1080 (30 FPS) and is in MPEG4 format. The main camera is pretty good and allows you to get quality pictures, especially under favorable conditions. However, even in unfavorable conditions, you can get quite good photos, since there is a rather bright LED flash. In general, the details of the photos in the foreground are quite good, but with the distance they start to merge somewhat. Macro photography has good detail. HDR photos have improved sharpness and high dynamic range.

The video quality is good. The digital stabilization system also plays a certain role in this: an extremely smooth image cannot be obtained, but it eliminates micro-shaking. The quality of the recorded sound is especially pleasing: the frequency range is quite wide, with a good margin of sensitivity, but it strongly depends on the presence of wind (the microphones are well blown out).

The main camera settings menu is pretty simple and intuitive. The feature set is not very large, but quite sufficient for most users. It includes a couple of shooting modes (Normal, Stabilize, Burst, HDR) and multiple scenes (Auto, Action, Presentation, Night, Beach, or Snow) ... To get a frame, you just need to touch the screen at any point. The focus area can be dragged as it is always linked to the metering point. There is also support for geotagging (geotargeting), flash work in automatic mode and changing the aspect ratio.

Overall, the camera came out pretty good. She will be able to please with high quality photos even in low light conditions. It is not a shame to submit such photos and videos for general review on blogs or social networks.

Examples of photography

Examples of filming

An example of daytime shooting from a BlackBerry Z30 smartphone at 1080p resolution with basic settings

An example of a daytime shooting in rainy weather from a BlackBerry Z30 smartphone at 1080p resolution with basic settings

User interface

The smartphone runs on the proprietary operating system BlackBerry OS 10.2.1.3175, based on QNX. This is the latest version at the time of this writing. Updates can be expected at the end of 2014.

The interface visually looks quite nice and pleases with smooth and beautiful animation. At first, everything seems very confusing, since many of the usual system functions and controls are simply missing. At the same time, almost all control is based on sliding your finger on different sides of the screen ("swipes"), which you can familiarize yourself with when you turn on the device for the first time by going through the tutorials. Having understood them, the control becomes very simple and, surprisingly, intuitive.

The lock screen (screenshots are not taken on it) displays the time and all input messages in the form of a nice list. From here you can start the camera by holding the corresponding icon for several seconds. Swiping your finger from bottom to top - the smartphone is unlocked (it also works when the screen is inactive), from top to bottom - the alarm clock opens.

Everything installed programs are displayed directly on the desktop (there is no separate menu for them), starting from the main menu and further to the right. On the left is the message center for all accounts, missed events, incoming mail and SMS / MMS, called the BlackBerry Hub. In practice, such a distribution is very convenient, and it significantly reduces the processing time of incoming correspondence, due to the fact that all important information is concentrated in one place with a number of flexible settings.

We should also remember about the BIS service, which stands for "BlackBerry Internet Service". This is a service of your provider that allows you to receive email and have access to the Internet from your device. BIS differs from BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) in that BIS has access to your personal mailboxes, and BES - to corporate. Also, this service provides receiving push-mail (instant delivery) from 10 of your e-mail boxes.

Multitasking is implemented so that up to eight applications can run in the background. They are closed by a "swipe" from the bottom border of the screen upwards, and at the same time always leads to the screen of running applications. Moreover, for some programs in this mode, a preview is turned on, which appears between the main screen and the BlackBerry Hub. Applications can be moved around the screen and sorted in edit mode, which can be called up by holding down their icons for a long time. A trash can icon appears next to non-system programs, which makes it possible to delete them.

Slide your finger down from the top edge to reveal the settings panel. It allows you to personalize different parameters of your smartphone, hide unused ones and reorganize the order of the most important ones. In general, it allows you to significantly increase the flexibility of the operating system and adjust it to the personal tastes of each specific user.

Phones under the BlackBerry brand have always been famous for their QWERTY keyboards. Their virtual version came out no worse. The appearance of the keyboard is pretty basic, but the differences lie a little deeper. Since each user has an individual typing style, the system tracks it and adapts, thereby speeding up the typing. Remember also about predictive typing: when you type between the rows of keys, variants of words appear, and the more messages you type, the better the system adapts to your writing style, suggesting your most used words as quick clues. Having got used to the keyboard, you can type any text very quickly. To erase the text, just swipe the keyboard from right to left. Switching input languages ​​is carried out by holding the corresponding icon until the context menu is called.

It should be noted that the smartphone is well prepared for office tasks, which is not surprising, given its business orientation. Installed here is fully functional office suite Docs to Go, allowing you to create, edit and view Word files and Excel, as well as edit and view PowerPoint files... Remember app is a fairly advanced notepad that is suitable not only for regular typing, but also can add files and set tags to it. Other applications include the Functional Calculator, Adobe Reader, and cloud service for your files (Dropbox).

The stock browser does a wonderful job of quickly opening web pages. In addition, it has full Flash support and HTML5 compatibility, and its interface is quite simple and intuitive. Attempt to install Google chrome unsuccessful: it starts up but doesn't work as expected.

High compatibility with Android and some Google services... For example, with Gmail, you can easily download all your contacts, and install applications downloaded from external sources (for internal download, there is a branded BlackBerry World store, in which there are quite a few useful programs), is possible not only in native .bar format, but also from .apk files, thanks to the built-in virtual environment. At the same time, not all programs installed in this way work correctly, and for some it is also necessary to manually download cache files to the corresponding folder of the system.

There are quite a few OS settings and they provide access to almost all smartphone subsystems, including several accounts.

In general, the interface works quickly and very smoothly, even with open applications and a large number of beautiful animations. During the work, no complaints arose: everything worked stably.

Hardware platform and performance

The BlackBerry Z30 is built on a hardware platform using not the newest, but still quite powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 2-core processor (MSM8960T). It is based on the Krait 200 design using a 28nm process technology. The maximum processor speed is 1.7GHz and the L2 cache is 1MB. A rather powerful Qualcomm Adreno 320 solution with an operating clock frequency of 400 MHz is used as integrated graphics. It also has support for OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenVG 1.1, OpenCL 1.2 and DirectX 9.0c.

The amount of RAM is 2 GB (dual-channel LPDDR2 with a frequency of 500 MHz). For storing user data, 13.2 GB of internal storage is provided out of the 16 GB installed. You can expand this space with a microSD card up to 32 GB.

The platform's performance by modern standards is not very high, which is clearly demonstrated by the results of various benchmarks. However, it is more than enough for the smooth operation of the OS, all its components and for quite demanding applications and games, including 3D, launched through the emulator of Android programs. For example, Dead Trigger 2 at high settings slows down only with a large accumulation of zombies or special effects, but this is not critical and will allow you to fully enjoy the game.

Communication and communications

The smartphone works in all modern mobile networks: GSM, WCDMA / HSPA + and LTE Cat.3. There is only one radio module, exactly like the number of SIM-cards. The quality of calls is at a high level: there are no interruptions or independent drops, and the voice transmission is clear, but depends on the location of the user and the quality of the network itself.

The set of communication options is presented only Bluetooth modules V4.0 LE and Wi-Fi. The latter has support for 802.11a / b / g / n protocols and Wi-Fi Hotspot, and is also capable of operating in the 2.4 / 5 GHz band. There is also support for DLNA and NFC protocols.

Work of modules wireless networks also does not cause any complaints: everything connects quickly and keeps the connection well, although the received bandwidth cannot be called high. In particular, the data transfer rate in the home network was fixed at 19 Mbps when receiving and 26 Mbps when sending information (with a total wired line of 100 Mbps).

Navigation systems are represented by GPS and GLONASS modules. The first of them quickly identifies about 20 satellites in an open area. Communication is stable with half of them. The connection itself is quite fast and takes no more than 15 seconds. Only the first launch took about 2 minutes to set all the parameters.

Autonomous work

The BlackBerry Z30 is powered by a non-removable lithium-ion battery of a fairly high capacity - 2880 mAh. Thanks to this, very good indicators of autonomy are provided, especially with measured use of smartphone functions. With relatively active use, the novelty is capable of functioning for a day or two without problems.

As a result of testing, viewing HD video at 50% display brightness and the included Wi-Fi and GPS modules drained the battery in a little more than 11 hours (11:12 to be exact). Game simulation using Dead Trigger 2 ("Storage", high graphics settings) with 100% display brightness and enabled Wi-Fi and GPS modules ran out of battery power in about 5.5 hours (more precisely, in 5:22).

The battery charging time from the complete power supply unit (5V, 0.75A) is about 3 hours.

An extremely interesting and distinctive smartphone with its own charisma and unique charm. It wonderfully combines a solid and fairly modern design with perfect build quality, a nice Super AMOLED display, a decent main camera, pretty good autonomy, a functional and promising BlackBerry OS 10 operating system, which is actively developing and improving. The latter can offer a number of interesting established and the applications you need and services. Among them it should be noted: the BlackBerry Hub message center, which provides the ability to receive letters and notifications from different accounts; full-featured office suite Docs to Go, which provides the creation and editing of documents; functional notepad Remember; interesting, functional and quite comfortable virtual keyboard. High compatibility with Android and some Google services deserves special attention. And thanks to its own virtual environment, Android applications can be installed, although their full functionality is not guaranteed.

In this case, you will have to put up with the rather high price of the BlackBerry Z30, not the newest technical characteristics(although they are enough for the OS and 3D games), the OS management features, as well as the lack of such a variety of programs as on Android and iOS. Over time, these software shortcomings can be minimized, or completely removed - we will wait for the next OS updates and new interesting applications.

All in all, if you want a high-quality smartphone with a stylish design that will highlight your sophisticated taste and status, then the BlackBerry Z30 is a good candidate for purchase. It will become your business partner for work and a source of entertainment on vacation.

Advantages:

• interesting and stylish design;
• perfect quality compilations;
• nice 5-inch Super AMOLED display with a good oleophobic coating;
• high-quality stereo speakers;
• good photographic capabilities of the main camera;
• high autonomy;

• support of global positioning systems GPS and GLONASS and their high-quality work;
• comfortable and quite functional virtual keyboard;

• beautiful and functional operating system BlackBerry OS 10;
• compatible with Android and some Google services
• support for micro-HDMI port.

Peculiarities:

• one SIM card;
• the need to get used to the peculiarities of OS management;
• the screen resolution is 1280 x 720 (HD);
• the light sensor does not turn off;

Flaws:

• quite high price;
• non-removable battery;
• not the newest 2-core processor.

We express our gratitude to the official reseller of the company's products Blackberry in Ukraine for the smartphone provided for testing.

All prices for BlackBerry + Z30

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The review of the BlackBerry Z30 smartphone, which made a lot of noise even before its release, we will start with the design. Whoever says what, and design is one of the most important characteristics, which we pay attention to first of all, when choosing a gadget for a long enough time. You could even say our mobile phone- this is a continuation of us, our second person, so to speak.

At all times, people have tried to somehow stand out from the crowd, to emphasize their uniqueness. Have mobile gadgets it manifests itself in different form factors, and in bright colors of the case, and in different prices ... But there is something that never changes. Among the heap of all those annoying tinsel eyes, elegance, style, lack of unnecessary things and a full set of functions have always been appreciated.

These features are embodied in the BlackBerry Z30, elegant as a grand piano, stylish as a Bond tuxedo, streamlined like a sports car, multifunctional like a computer.

The appearance of the BlackBerry Z30

Today, the so-called phablets (phablet from phone + tablet) or tablet phones are becoming more and more fashionable. But as they say, size matters. The size of the BlackBerry Z30 is 140.7x72x9.4 mm, weight - 170 g. Almost the entire front panel is occupied by a large 5-inch SuperAMOLED display. The golden mean - this is how you can characterize the dimensions of the Z30. It is designed for convenience. Convenience in all respects. A highest quality build and materials nicely complement this picture.

Under a durable glass display protected by an oleophobic coating, the BlackBerry corporate logo flaunts, and above it is one of four speakers, light and proximity sensors, and a 2-megapixel HD FaceTime camera.

At the top there is a familiar on / off button and a 3.5 mm jack for a stereo headset. At the bottom there is the main microphone and a recess for opening back cover... On the right are the volume control keys, voice control and two of the four speakers. On the left are MicroUSB and MicroHDMA connectors, and if you remove the cover, you will find slots for MicroSIM and MicroSD cards.

The rear panel houses an 8 Megapixel camera, LED flash and BlackBerry corporate logo.

For size comparison, here's a photo of the Z30 with the Z10 and Q10:

Included with the gadget you will receive a charger, a USB to micro USB cable, excellent headphones with spare earbuds and instructions.

Z30 hardware

The heart of the Z30 is the Qualcomm MSM8960T Pro Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor clocked at 1.7 GHz. BlackBerry, like Apple, is not going down the path of increasing the number of processor cores, which not only speed up, but greatly reduces battery life. It is much more efficient to follow the path of optimization, which is fully embodied in the Z30. With a 2880 mAh battery, this smartphone can last up to 25 hours in normal use. In this he has no competitors among devices with similar functionality. With two gigabytes of RAM, forget about freezes or lags. The device has 16 Gb of internal memory and is expandable with a 64 Gb microSD card up to 80 Gb. In addition, the Z30 has an active USB host that allows you to connect, for example, flash drives to it, and manage data using a built-in file manager.

Z30 display and graphics

As for the graphics of the BlackBerry Z30, this is taken care of by a quad-core GPU Quad Adreno 320 and a 5-inch multi-touch display. The display resolution is 720x by 1280 pixels, the density is 295 dpi, the colors are 16 million, the aspect ratio is 16: 9, and the color depth is 24 bits. The display of graphics and text is incredibly clear thanks to SuperAMOLED display technology, which, while using modest power consumption, significantly increases viewing angles and makes colors rich and deep. You can watch videos on the Z30 in HD 720p.

Photos and videos in the Z30

The BlackBerry Z30 is equipped with an 8 Megapixel main camera that captures images with a resolution of 3264 by 2448 pixels. The camera sensor is backlit for low-light photography, and the lens is a 5-element F2.2. The camera has autofocus, 5x digital zoom, automatic exposure, image stabilization and LED flash, and the Time Shift function, in tandem with face detection, will allow you to correct certain elements of the photo. You can correct up to five faces, each one separately. To do this, before taking a picture, select the Time Shift function in the Camera application and take a picture. The camera detects faces and takes a series of pictures, after which, using the slider, you can choose the best option for each face.

The front camera of the Z30 has a resolution of 2 Megapixels and 5x digital zoom. With it, you can chat in HD video format (720p, 30 frames per second), and the video stabilization function will help make your communication unforgettable.

The main camera allows you to record video in Full HD format (1080p, 30 frames per second) with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. We have recorded a short video so that you can evaluate the quality of shooting BlackBerry Z30.

Below you can see examples of photos with the Z30 camera (click on the picture to view full size).

Sound and communication in the Z30

For the sound in the Z30, the proprietary technology is responsible - BlackBerry Natural Sound, which makes the sound of a smartphone out of competition. With three microphones and two stereo speakers, you will communicate with the other person as if they were next to you. And watching videos, listening to music and playing games on the BlackBerry Z30 is a pleasure. The smartphone supports many audio and video formats: 3GP, 3GP2, M4A, M4V, MOV, MP4, MKV, MPEG-4, AVI, ASF, WMV, WMA, MP3, MKA, AAC, AMR, F4V, WAV.

The signal reception technology in the BlackBerry Z30 is also unique and has no analogues. The smartphone uses technology from Paratec, which BlackBerry bought in early 2013, while still being RIM. This technology delivers fast data rates and connectivity in poorly networked locations with a 3x5mm ParaScan that tunes antennas in record time.

In addition to the standard GSM / GPRS / EDGE module, suitable for Ukrainian mobile networks, the BlackBerry Z30 has dual-band, high-speed Wi-Fi that supports Wi-Fi Direct and Miracast for direct data transfer between devices.

To access the Internet, you no longer need to activate the BIS service. Latest version Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy will provide you with reliable support for various headsets and BlackBerry Tag - data exchange with devices that support NFC technology. And, of course, BlackBerry Z30 has satellite navigation: GPS and GLONASS. Residents of countries with 4G (LTE) networks will be able to experience all the benefits of high-speed data transfer (up to 50Mbs) on mobile networks using the Z30.

The BlackBerry 10 operating system is the jewel in the crown of the Z30. It is specially designed for BlackBerry smartphones and is fully optimized with its hardware. Thanks to this combination, the Z30 boasts a long battery life (18 hours of talk time) and trouble-free operation of all functions and programs.

This is the highlight of the Z30. Perfected message center. All notifications from all your communication channels are collected here. These are calls and SMS, social networks and instant messengers, e-mail accounts and MMS. New message notifications are also displayed on the lock screen. Without unlocking your smartphone, you can find out the degree of importance of the message and decide whether to read it now or postpone it for later. The BB Hub also has a calendar integrated so you don't miss any appointments. The Smart Reply function makes it possible to send a message to the interlocutor right during a call, without leaving the call. There is a set of templates and the ability to create your own. The Priority Hub function is an intelligent self-learning module that will show you first notifications from the most important and frequently used communication channels, constantly adjusting to the host's preferences. You can also customize it yourself.

The way the BlackBerry Hub notification system works from BlackBerry is fundamentally different from all others. The phone does not check or download messages at a certain interval - a notification about a new message comes from the BlackBerry server at the moment it is received. You can download it immediately or later. This method, firstly, saves battery power, and secondly, it eliminates any delays in obtaining the necessary information. And thirdly, and most interestingly, all data on the server is stored in encrypted form, which makes it almost impossible for third parties to gain access to your confidential information. That is why terminals based on the BlackBerry operating system are in such demand among government agencies, the police, NATO and even the CIA. When using the service, neither competitors, nor even government agencies will get to the internal corporate information.

BlackBerry Messenger

This messenger allows you to communicate both in text mode and in voice and video via encrypted channels. Moreover, in text mode, messages can not even be typed, but simply dictated. And all this is available in Russian! And in video mode, you can transfer an image from both the front camera and the main one.

BBM is also available for other OS - Android and iOS. Paired with unparalleled BlackBerry Natural Sound technology, your conversations will be pleasant and natural, and it will be a pleasure to watch videos and play games with such sound. Separately, it should be said that data, both text and sound from video, is transmitted between devices in encrypted form, through the BlackBerry servers, so it is unrealistic to get access to confidential information. And this is even without connecting additional services.

BlackBerry Z30 keyboard

Separately, it should be said about the touch keyboard Z30. Without a doubt - this is a masterpiece, and there is no competition among such programs. All have 2 unique properties touch keyboards in BlackBerry 10 OS. The first is intelligent typing hints. When you are typing a word - Z30 will offer options and you will only have to swipe up the desired option without having to type the word to the end. You can even type without any spaces at all - the Z30 will sort everything out on its own.

And the longer you type, the more suitable word suggestions the smart keyboard will suggest. The second unique property is that if, when typing, you often find yourself on a letter not in the middle but closer to the edge, after a while the Z30 will take into account such a feature of your pressing if you pressed in the center. Forget about boring uncomfortable keyboards - even an experienced secretary will envy your typing with the BlackBerry Z30.

Popular Apps

The Z30 comes preinstalled with social media clients such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare. There are also VKontakte and Google+, you can download them in BlackBerry World - an application store for BlackBerry. In it you will find a huge variety of paid and free programs.

New apps and games are constantly being added to the store. In Docs To Go you can view, edit and create .doc, .xls and .ppt files, in Adobe Reader you can view .pdf files. The Evernote app is a great task book that you can sync with your computer or any other device. An excellent weather client will always keep you informed about the temperature and bad weather outside the window.

Calendar notifications are displayed in the BB Hub - you won't miss anything important. Connect to Dropbox dramatically expands your file storage and sharing capabilities, and the recently launched Connect to Dropbox has taken this capability to a completely secure enterprise level. For communication, in addition to BBM in BBWorld, there are Skype and WhatsApp.

The client for Instagram is almost ready - iGrann. Maps for GPS navigation- Wisepilot, Navitel or free google maps. With the help of BlackBerry Protect, you can track the location of the smartphone when it is lost and protect personal data on it, up to a complete remote erasure. The IntouchApp Contacts service will automatically save all your contacts and help you restore them or transfer them to another device. BlackBerry Balance helps you keep your business and personal information separate. This feature is configured by the BES Enterprise Service Administrator. The browser on the Z30 is the best among mobile browsers - this is shown by the html5 test.

In BlackBerry 10 OS, you have the ability to share your desktop when calling via BBM, and via Bluetooth 4.0, you can make friends with the Z30 and your car. The Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi Miracast functions are also very convenient. The first will allow you to share files over Wi-Fi directly with other devices, without the need for an access point, and the second allows you to sync HD video playback with your TV and vice versa.

Instead of a total

As a result, let's say that the BlackBerry Z30 smartphone is a device that contains all the functions necessary for a modern phone, many of which have no analogues on the market. He will cope with any tasks and will become your faithful assistant at work and rest. The operating time from a single charge from 18 hours of talk time to 25 with a mixed one, will not put you in an awkward situation when the phone turned off at the most inopportune moment. And the best data protection system will give you confidence in the security of your confidential information.