BlackBerry Q10: Five things you need to know before the May 1 launch

The wait is over for BlackBerry fans who have been holding out for the feature that has long set BlackBerry devices apart: a physical keyboard. With the BlackBerry Z10 having been on the market for almost three months now, customers have had the chance to test out BB10 on a full touch-screen device, but for those who stood firmly by the physical keyboard experience, you’ll finally get your wish next week.

On May 1, BlackBerry will be debuting the Q10 across Canada through Rogers, Telus and Bell for $199 with a three-year contract. It looks like the UK will once again get the phone a few days earlier (the Q10 will hit stores in Britain on April 26), but that won’t stop loyal Canadian fans from eagerly picking up the BlackBerry Q10 soon after.

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Now that various news outlets have had a chance to go hands-on with the new smartphone, we’ve rounded up all the things you need to know about the BlackBerry Q10 before it hits shelves in a week:

It’ll hold up to abuse - mostly

I’m not suggesting you should treat the Q10 poorly, but it’s been designed to hold up to a certain degree of abuse. The back cover of the phone is a carbon-glass composite which has some flex to it. Unfortunately, some reviewers at CNET and TechCrunch mentioned a noticeable shifting of the back panel, especially around the USB port, most likely due to the flexible material. The coated border around the phone, however, appears to be quite rugged, too, and should act as a decent bumper for the phone.

Yes, it really is the keyboard you’ve been waiting for

The Q10 would be dead out of the gate if its keyboard didn’t live up to the hype. And thankfully, most reviewers have come to the consensus that it does. Peter Nowak went so far as to write most of his CBC review on the device, something he says he wouldn’t dream of doing with a touch-screen phone. It’s the largest keyboard of any BlackBerry yet, and the keys are similar to the ones on the BlackBerry Curve and Bold. Instead of a curved keyboard, though, the rows are straight, separated by silver ‘frets.’ To make up for the lack of flexibility you get with a soft keyboard, the Q10 lets you take certain shortcuts, like typing “Email Bob” or “SMS Susan” to initiate those actions. Since the Q10 still has a touch screen, you’ll still be using that to perform certain editing functions (which, for those of us who used older models of BlackBerrys, is preferable to having to maneuver a cursor with a scroll wheel or button).

You’re trading in screen real estate for that keyboard

It’s pretty obvious, but you can’t have a full-sized screen on a phone with a physical keyboard, so the Q10 had to give up some real estate to make it happen. The 3.1-inch square AMOLED touch screen has a 720x720 pixel resolution, and about the same pixel density as an iPhone 5. Ars Technica says that you’re getting about 44 per cent less information on the screen, compared to the Z10, which will be a bit of a pain for those who are used to full touch screens, especially when playing games that traditionally require a landscape layout. But you were just waiting for the keyboard, right? So what’s a lack of Angry Birds going to matter to you?

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You’re using a slightly more advanced BB10 than the Z10 – for a while

The new Q10 is shipping with BlackBerry 10.1 operating system, which includes improvements to the BB10 currently running on the Z10, like high-dynamic range (HDR) photography, PIN to PIN messaging through BlackBerry Hub, and some demos and walkthroughs to help you get a grip on the new gesture-heavy interface, Ars Technica reports. But an update to 10.1 will be coming shortly after launch, most likely getting pushed to phones towards the end of May, so you’ll only be able to have OS superiority over the Z10 for a couple of weeks at most.

Don’t rule out the Z10 keyboard entirely

While those of you who have been waiting for the Q10 to become available are doing it largely for the keyboard, make sure you give the keyboard on the Z10 a fair chance. BGR’s Jonathan Geller called it the best virtual keyboard he’s used, going so far as to call it “borderline great.” The flick-to-type method requires some getting used to, but you may end up preferring it over the physical keyboard after some time.

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