One Month with my Blackberry Z10 – Good, Bad and Better #VZWVoices #Save

So let’s start with the bad –  I don’t like to talk bad about things, so it’s better to get it out of the way right?

As savings bloggers we were given the Z10 to use for deal apps, to help us blog easier. The problem I’ve found is there is a lack of these apps available on the Blackberry Hub. This seems to be a trend with the Blackberry, they may have come to the dance a little late. The apps on the Blackberry Hub aren’t Android Based or iOS based, since they are their own format they have to be developed separately. The market is growing daily, so I’m sure this wont be a problem long. But for me right now it’s a large problem.

I don’t consider myself an app heavy person. The average person has over 100 apps on their smart phone. I, however, only have around 70 on my phone and many are the ones I cannot delete (we all have those on our phones). But there are some I use daily, including one for my blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and on and on. The Z10 comes loaded with Facebook and Twitter which is great but Pinterest and Instagram are not available on the Z10. Other bloggers have been able to get them to work by “side loading” them – I haven’t been able to get that to work, and find it a bit upsetting I can’t get it to work. My blog app? Well it just recently came to Android, a year after iOS, so I doubt I’ll see it soon. Yes – all of these can be reached through the browser, but that takes longer than it should in my opinion.

I hope to see these improve in the next few months while using the phone, because honestly switching back and forth between two phones gets pretty annoying to get simple things done.

So let’s move onto the good. One things I’m completely happy with is the camera on the Z10. Besides the Time Shift function (I’ll cover that soon), the camera takes fantastic images. The one at the top of the post as well as this quick shot from the garden were just point and click shots. The colors are true, there is a great depth of field and there is zero graininess.

But there are reasons I can only say this is “good”. With my Razr M, I have Google+ set up so it automatically uploads my images. Currently this is not available on the Z10. Instead, you have to either email yourself the images or use the Blackberry Link program on your computer. As you probably have noticed by now, I take a lot of pictures – all the time. So emailing myself them all would be a problem. Besides the general issue I can’t get the images to attach to the compose email function. Instead, I find myself texting the images to my other phone, saving them down and then emailing them to myself.

That is of course, unless I want a lot at once… Then I have to use the Blackberry Link. Having to install another software on my laptop wasn’t what I wanted to do, and the fact that it auto launches when you turn on your PC was not only annoying but slowed down start up. I had to dig around and find how to stop that right away (easily done in settings by unchecking a box). Now that I have that disengaged I have plug in my Z10 with the usb cord and launch Blackberry Link (which takes a couple minutes to launch on its own), and transfer my images. I’m still not happy I have to use another software, and maybe I’m too spoiled with cloud drives and auto-uploads, but the Link will work for now.

One more reason I rate the camera as only good – trust me the picture quality is great – but the X,Y axis is not set for upload. What do I mean? If you are like me, and you like to upload images directly to Facebook from your phone you want to pay attention to this. While we were in the car last week driving to Georgia I took the shot at the top of the post while my friend drove. Holding the phone in the horizontal direction I would expect the camera to take a horizontal (or landscape) image. It did – however when I uploaded it to Facebook the photo loaded in a portrait format. A pretty shot but was anyone going to get the neck ache to check it out? This however only appears to be in the upload option, when you download the photos to your computer and sort through them images are in the right direction and auto-rotate

Now, onto my favorite thing about the Blackberry Z10 (so far) – well, there are two in this category.

First: NFC – Near Field Communication. Does your phone have this? Not many do yet, but it’s seriously cool. With NFC you can simply touch phones with your friends and share files like images, music or even videos. You don’t have to email it, text it or do anything other than agree to share with your friends. This doesn’t mean your files aren’t safe, they will only go where you want them to. Cool right? It gets better!

With NFC you can actually start to automatically connect to some Bluetooth technology. This includes speakers, headphones and any technology that is NFC capable. Trust me, we will be seeing a lot more of this in the future. Check out the Jabra Revo Headphones, I had a chance to play with the NFC on the Z10 and these last week – you can take a call or listen to your music cordlessly with just a touch to one side of the headphones. That is pretty sweet.

Second – I could shout this one from the rooftop – I love the Mobile Hotspot feature on the Z10. Every Z10 is equipped with 4G Mobile Hotspot capabilities, however it does require activation on your phone. If you are traveling this is fantastic feature!

While we were on the long 13 hour drive down to Georgia, we knew there would be parts that one or both of us would need access to the internet. Having been on the road we were taking in the past, I know that in spots of the mountains we lose cell service. So we set out on our way and fired up the mobile hotspot.

To set it up I just turned it on and set up a password we wouldn’t forget (this can be changed again later) and we were on our way. We could pair up to eight devices with the hotspot at a time. Between the two of us, we had 6 items in the car. At any point we had two items paired with the hotspot. While my friend drove I pulled out my tablet and played on Facebook, published blog posts (at 70 miles an hour) and chatted with friends.

As we drove through the mountains, without a cell tower in site we kept 4G connection and were able to take care of business while we were on the road. This was fantastic – and I could see using this for business all the time! It would also be great if you were on the road with your kids and they wanted to keep busy, or you had to finish typing work emails while someone else drove.

Like I said before, right now it’s a love/hate relationship I have with my Z10. There are some fantastic features that I am absolutely in love with but the lack of apps is still hard to get past. Let’s hope in the next few months that gets better and is no longer an issue for the Z10!