Amazing battery but poor camera: Pros and cons of BlackBerry Z30

BlackBerry launched its latest flagship device, the Z30 for Rs 39,990 a short while ago.

The phone is seen as the successor to the Z10, which didn’t really sell well despite getting favourable reviews.

Besides a larger screen, there is the highest number of microphones on a phone to enable voice clarity, there’s new antenna technology that BlackBerry claims will noticeably help in poor coverage areas, there are stereo speakers and most importantly, there’s a very juicy battery that really sets the Z30 apart from the rest. There’s an all new iteration of the Blackberry 10 OS too, and in areas like productivity and elements like touch screen keyboards, the big Z30 takes BlackBerry’s productivity edge to an all new level.

Here is a quick round up of what we loved and hated about the device. For a more detailed and comprehensive review, go here .

WHAT WE LOVE

* Amazing battery life
The 2880mAH battery is non-removable and BlackBerry promises up to 25 hours of mixed use, and I’m happy to state that it lives up to the promise. It’s a delight to come back home at the end of a long workday and see 50 percent of battery left and at worst, around 20-30 percent. This, when I run a host of sideloaded Android apps, which aren’t optimised for BlackBerry 10 and are battery drainers.

* Instant previews and unique actionable Toast Notifications

E-mail, BBM and SMS message previews now appear in any app and with toast notifications users can respond to BBM and SMS messages in any app. It’s very useful especially when you’re browsing or watching a news video for instance, and BlackBerry 10.2 is the only mobile OS with this nifty feature.

* Sound quality, especially on BBM Voice and Video

On the sound front, the stereo speakers are a great addition, but what’s unique is what BlackBerry calls Natural Sound technology, part of BlackBerry OS 10.2, that supposedly makes BBM Voice and BBM Video chats sound more natural and realistic. BlackBerry claims that Natural Sound lets you hear nuances and variations in tone, making conversations sound like you’re in the same room. When I heard samples, I was very impressed, and it does seem to work well in BBM calls between Z30s.

WHAT WE HATE

* Poor Camera specs

There’s an 8 MP HD auto focus camera on the back, which does seem like a letdown when smartphones far cheaper boast of 13 MP cameras, and there’s a 2MP fixed focus HD camera up front. The 8 megapixel camera seems poor on paper when compared to other Hero devices and it’s the same unit as on the Z10. Indoor pictures were crisp and sharp. Colours were well defined. My colleague Angelo Mathews who’s a bigger photography buff than me, found outdoor pictures confusing though.There is a consistent haze when shooting on the 16:9 mode. Daylight shots often look different when shot back to back, one with a slight tint of haze and the other without.

* Contact management problem still persists

Perhaps it was because I was reviewing an unit with a pre-market OS release. But Contacts is still a horrible mess since the day BlackBerry 10 was launched. It’s terrible form for BlackBerry to not deal with the Contacts problem in a productivity-focused mobile OS. I for instance have a huge number of duplicate contacts and struggle with managing these. And Gmail synchronisation is still poor-minutes after you’re read an email on your BlackBerry 10 smartphone, the same e-mail shows as unread on Gmail on your desktop or vice versa.

*Despite great battery, removable battery would have been great for road warriors