Blackberry Classic

Before going through this review, let’s take a moment and recall what Blackberry is best known for. I bet the first thing that strikes your mind is the physical keypads.

The last phone having such was Blackberry Bold (2011) after which the Canadian giant got deviated from its path with full touch screen offerings such as Z10, Z30 and Z3; which were not at all that bad but failed to please the market.

And now the tech giant is back with the all new Blackberry Classic.

The very best of Blackberry

The 35-key backlit keyboard on the Classic is the best you can get in the market at the moment. The keys are appropriately shaped and offer an amazing tactile feedback, delivering a sense of satisfaction on registering an input that the touch screens fails to offer.

The iconic BlackBerry optical trackpad offers unmatched speed and control over the tasks you perform, whether it is excel sheets, e-mails, browsing or BBM.

The smartphone offers faster performance with default shortcuts such as long press B for browser, O for settings, U for calculator, Q to enable silent mode, etc. In addition, you can also assign shortcuts for specific tasks.

In short, it is the original Blackberry DNA in a modern and refined manner that will surely please the Blackberry fans and even the first time BB users.

Robust and premium construction

Built on the design platform of one of the best selling Blackberry device-Bold, the Classic is a stunner. The stainless steel frame that runs through the sides looks elegant and adds strength to the overall design.

The left edge houses the slots for nano SIM card and the microSD card that further boosts the memory by up-to 128 GB. The volume-mute and power on/off buttons ergonomically sits on the right and top edge respectively.

At the back is the Blackberry signature logo that sits on a dotted surface which looks good and adds a grip. With the 10.2 mm thickness, it is quite evident that Classic is not to be count in the race of slim smartphones but with the robust and premium construction it offers, you will not complain about that.

BB 10 is getting into the game

The software (BB10.3.1) on the Classic is pretty much like the Passport. You have Blackberry World for enterprise level secure applications for productivity and Amazon store serves the task for other requirements by offering up to 293,000 Android apps. However many Android apps are not customized for the square aspect ratio which hampers the user experience.

Then Blackberry Blend lets you access your phone’s messages, documents, calendar, etc. on your computer and tablet. And managing all your notifications at a one place in an efficient manner is possible with the help of Blackberry Hub.

Performance

Under the hood is a Dual-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon processor with the support of 2 GB RAM, which is a mix bag. Sometimes everything works buttery smooth and then there are occasional lags on running five or six Android apps simultaneously.

There is an 8 MP rear camera with flash which offers good shots if given ample light; however the low-light pictures lack detailing and have noise. Also camera is a bit slow in focusing the subject.

The 3.5 inch display with a 720x720-pixel resolution (294ppi) is super sharp but feels small when compared to current market scenario. However it has 60% more usable space when compared to Bold 9900 and serves all the tasks well.

You will not find any difficulty using it in sunlight as the amazing level of brightness makes icons, texts and images clearly visible. Moreover it is fairly touch responsive, offers a good level of colour reproduction and has Gorilla Glass 3 for protection.

Calling is never an issue on Blackberry devices and Classic is no different with its crystal clear call quality.

Talking about the battery back-up, the phone survived for 16 hours with a heavy usage of browsing, BBM, camera, calling and e-mails which is a decent mark. You can make it work for a complete day within moderate usage.