Blackberry's new Passport is unlike any other
Blackberry has released a phone that either pushes the boundary of phone design in useful ways, or proposes a new and unusable form factor, according to your personal pre-inclination. The Register reviews it and calls it crazy, but full of great ideas. It's square, for one, a radical departure from the candy-bar form factor so prevalent in modern smartphones. It's also sporting improvements to its QNX-based new OS, a great screen, and reportedly a 30 hour battery life. It runs Android apps natively, with no apparent lag or problem. Lastly, the keyboard doubles as a trackpad - something you'll either love or hate. The Guardian takes a look at it here, and offers some other insights. There are some lovely pictures at The Verge, who conclude, by they way that they don't like it.[Ed. note: Me, I want one.]
This thing looks like the definition of DOA. It's BlackBerry Storm 3.0. It's just awful. LOOK WHERE THE SPACE BAR IS! This is going to be effective to type on?
Why does the whole keyboard have to function as a pointing device, mixing up accepted touchscreen user paradigms? Who wants to run emulated Android on a battery powered handheld?
This is all completely apart from the form factor and appearance.
I'm dumbfounded. Or dumb. I don't know.