Upgrading from BB OS 10.0 to 10.1

This is proving to be a longer process than anticipated.

The backup from BB10 to my Mac (Lion) has taken some time - about 45 minutes. I dare not touch the phone or its cable for fear of interrupting the process.

After the backup, the update to the OS has taken approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. The phone still works as a phone during the installation process - at least it does for inbound calls.

The phone is now rebooting. My fingers are very much crossed.

My hopes and aspirations are along these lines:

• Battery: It will being a modest improvement to battery life
• Display: It will fix a bug that makes the display distort by stretching it about 100% horizontally, but keeping the vertical intact (bizarre)
• Network: The firmware that runs the mobile part will improve the phone's ability to hold on to the data network and step up to 3G/HSPA when it's available and data's being used (I often have to hard-switch to 3G in Network Settings, then revert it to 2G/3G; same as on my BB Bold)
• Run away process: There is a random issue that leads to the phone feeling very hot to the touch. Sometimes on the battery side, sometimes the other; I hope the root-cause is addressed

It's just completed its reboot now. I'm in.

I'll give it a few weeks and then post my verdict.

BlackBerry Z10 review - 3 weeks in

I received the new BlackBerry Z10 a couple of days after its launch - it arrived to great anticipation at my office on the 1st of February. I'd hung on patiently, continuing to use my faithful BlackBerry Bold 9780. It was a long overdue change.

The Z10 was a leap of faith for me, mainly due to the soft keyboard. I've never been a fan of soft keyboards, especially following my iPhone experience and use of Android. Nevertheless, as you'll see below, it's probably the centrepiece of what RIM (sorry BlackBerry) has accomplished with the 10.

Pro's

• Exchange integration much improved through ActiveSync - no need for USB sync on the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) anymore; it's just like BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Service)
• The soft keyboard is excellent, with superb predictive text feature and good auto correct (better than iOS and Android) - the word flick feature is great after you get into it (see photo)
• The physical device is beautiful. Bigger than an iPhone 5 in terms of width, but about the same length - it feels very well put together and the screen is excellent in terms of size, aspect and quality
• The Hub feature is very good and has a great user experience to it
• 'Flow' is excellent and really helps to integrate journey, not just experience
• Key social media support is engineered into the platform, with Twitter and Facebook integration very smooth
• The camera and HD video camera are both great; time-shift is superb for 'moment in time' photographs
• The music player is easy to use and the output is of a good quality
• The handset supports HSDPA and using the WiFi hotspot it's very fast from a laptop, where coverage exists (Vodafone UK) - see photo of speedcheck from the phone itself (taken at Woking station on a Wednesday at 0820

Keyboard: The soft keyboard showing a single sentence completed using the word flick feature.

Speed: The speed check (www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk) from the handset. Done at 0820 on 27th February 2013 at Working station. 1.23Mb/s down; 0.27mb/s up.

Con's

• Battery life lower than anticipated - seems similar to iOS (on iPhone 4s) and better than Android (Samsung GS2), but not by a great deal and could be a deal breaker to many BlackBerry stalwarts (battery life has always been great)
• The accelerometer could do with being more sensitive - it sometimes takes longer than it should to rotate between portrait and landscape
• The screen unlock uses the standard keyboard, which is too small and fiddly for this simple job
• The hotspot eats the battery life - use sparingly (this is true of all smartphones with this feature)
• Not part of the phone, but still part of the family, BlackBerry Link is at best okay - not as slick as iTunes [was]
• Again, not part of the phone, but decent accessories are fairly limited at the moment
• Apps. Apps. Apps … next section, please.

Top-10 Apps missing at time of writing - will impact adoption (1 being biggest impediment to adoption)

1. Facebook - it's there, but might as well not be. It's that dreadful, really awful
2. Instagram - no matter what you think of it, it's important
3. Twitter - not far behind Facebook in the 'awful app' stakes
4. Spotify
5. Temple Runner (for the kids, of course)
6. Skype [anything]
7. Sonos (RoomTunes at £7.50 is an alternative - and by all accounts an excellent one)
8. Strava
9. Runtastic
10. Skitracks

So, there you have it. The BlackBerry Z10.

• Am I pleased I waited - Yes
• Has it met my expectations - Yes
• Will it save BlackBerry - if the Apps come along quickly, yes; if not, then no
• Apart from Apps, what advice would I give to BlackBerry - work on battery life

Stay tuned.