For those who began typing on phones when BlackBerry and Palm ruled mobile, the move to pure touchscreen design has been a mixed blessing. They're responsive and natural, but nothing lets you crank out an email at top speed like those trusty QWERTY keys.
10 Things You Need To Know About This BIG Device
The BlackBerry Passport, is a huge phone with a big screen and the most sophisticated keyboard you've ever seen on a mobile device.
BlackBerry, which never fully went away, now has something new for that crowd: the BlackBerry Passport, a huge phone with a big screen and the most sophisticated keyboard you've ever seen on a mobile device.
The Passport isn't just big at 3.6 inches wide — it's weirdly big, with a square display perched atop a few strips of keys. There really isn't any other smartphone like it. BlackBerry says it picked this size for two reasons: One, the display can display 60 characters per line, which is supposedly very good for reading. And two, it's actually the exact same size as a real passport.
Here are 10 prominent features of the new BlackBerry Passport:
In addition, BlackBerry's latest phone isn't just a curious-looking face, though: This is BlackBerry's new flagship smartphone, powered by a speedy 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM with 32GB for storage (there's a microSD card slot if you want more). The 4.5-inch screen is 1,440 x 1,440, which makes for an impressive (and ultra-sharp) 453 pixels per inch (ppi).
The Passport's keyboard is different from all previous BlackBerry phones: It's still QWERTY, but it's just the basics — the period and symbol keys are missing. Where did they go? BlackBerry moved them to the display, and they appear whenever you start typing.
The big advantage here is the keys are adaptable — they can change depending on whatever you're doing. You'll see different keys when you're filling out an email field, for instance, than when you're writing body text.
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