Blackberry Z10

[mario]

I got one of these factory unlocked a few weeks ago, using Gixen to snipe it, for around $350 including shipping. It was time to replace my aging iPhone 3GS, and I was irritated by hardware quality of iPhone so much over the last three years that I wanted to try something else. In addition, I see no justification for the almost $700 price tag. I am not a big Android fan, probably thanks to a bad experience with some old Android 2.1 Motorola smartphone that didn't work well at all, so Blackberry seemed like a good choice, and as a big plus they can now be obtained at half the price of an iPhone.

And it didn't disappoint. It's great. It does everything that I ever needed iPhone for, and does it better. The hub is really convenient to see immediately anything I should be aware of. The user interface is well designed and swiping left/right/up/down to move around and bring options is a great idea. It's fast and supports LTE. Changing sim card is easy (for those of us who travel and use multiple sim cards), and so is changing the battery. It does not have unnecessary buttons (like "Home" button) that's only another thing that can break. Camera is of very good quality, and included set of applications it comes with is more than sufficient for most users. The voice quality is great, and so is battery life, despite some reviews I read that say otherwise.

I honestly don't see why it's not selling better than it is, at least not with the present price. The only thing that comes to my mind is that they overpriced it to begin with by having a price tag in line with iPhone. Looking back, that must have been a big mistake, and a lost opportunity. You don't need to make profit margin of 1000% on every phone you sell, and not only that you don't need to - you can't, unless you are Apple with a loyal fan base. Had they priced it at the present price level right away, I think they would have succeeded.

[BCITMike]

I also have a Z10 and love it. I don't want to ever use a phone with a dedicated Back/Home button when it should be a gesture.

It only gets better. I assume you have been loading the 10.2 leaks from crackberry.com?

[mario]

No, I only installed officially released latest OS version, which is, I believe, 10.1.