Blackberry 10.3

BB10 goes flatter and organized

Every mobile OS is shedding that extra shadows and animations for a more cleaner and svelte look. BB10.3 also features a polished look with redesigned flatter icons and ditches the unpleasant boxed translucent shadows behind them. The overall UI interface offers a clean appearance.

You can also add as many folders as you want to organize your applications in the app drawer. To make the OS more user friendly, Blackberry has added two finger swipes down for quick settings throughout the entire OS. You can customize them according to your needs and access them without minimizing the application you are working upon.

Searching becomes a cakewalk

You can find anything on the device by just typing on the new BB10.3 as the Universal Search is able to respond to everything

in microseconds to your inquiry. We found it utmost accurate in delivering results from phone, notes, emails, contacts, music,

videos, notes, etc. It even searches Twitter, Blackberry World, Facebook, Maps, Bing and a lot more.

Application base gets a boost

with Amazon store With the integration of Amazon Store, you can

now install a variety of Android applications on your Blackberry device. You get a dedicated Amazon app on BB10.3 that has a base of 2,50,000 applications. However, it still lacks many applications that are only available in Google Play store. Besides this, you do have Blackberry world and the usual .APK file installation option from various websites.

The virtual assistant offers hands free support

The Siri and Google voice counterpart on BB10.3 - Blackberry Assistant is quite impressive. Though it takes a little time to register what you are saying, the results are very accurate. It interprets Indian accent very well and delivers myriad of hands-free options such as setting reminders, make a call, set appointments, check weather, reply to emails and texts, and can read aloud your text messages and emails if you’re driving.

Acton bar is smarter now

The Action bar now shows the commonly used functions in the centre which comes very handy. For e.g. it displays compose and reply when you are accessing email and text messages. Other useful options like search and attachment are provided on the sides.

Blackberry Hub enables better control

BlackBerry Hub that integrates all your notifications from various

email and social network accounts also gets some useful updates. Now you can work on your notifications without opening up the individual applications. You can delete, mark, read or flag an email by just pressing it. You can download all the attachments in the email at the same time. You can even accept or decline an invitation  from the calendar app directly through BB Hub without even opening the calendar app.

Storage capacity gets a boost

BB10.3 supports microSD cards of storage up-to 128GB. So now you can store a lot of media content on your Blackberry device running the latest OS.

Devices supported

Back in January 2013, the Canadian giant introduced fist BB10 devices, the Z10 and Q10 and later Q5, Z30 and the affordable Z3 joined the group. The company has confirmed that these devices will skip the latest BB10.3 upgrade and will get the first incremental update BB10.3.1 later this year. However, the exact date is not

yet confirmed. The recently launched Blackberry Passport comes pre-installed with the BB10.3.

Should you upgrade to BB10.3?

The latest BB10.3 comes with numerous useful features that we have discussed above and adds stability to the overall user experience of Blackberry smartphones. We recommend Blackberry users to upgrade their BB10 devices to BB10.3.1 as soon as the official upgrade rolls out.