BlackBerry Q5 Review

BlackBerry launched its “budget” BB10 device yesterday and already we’ve been hearing quite a ruckus regarding the price. We didn’t expect it to be cheap, but Rs 24,990 is pushing it a bit. Our initial impressions with the handset showed us that it is indeed quite good and gives you a similar experience as the Q10. So is it worth the premium? Can BlackBerry justify the pricing when you can get more powerful Android and Windows Phone devices for the same? Let’s find out.

Design and build
The Q5 takes a more flat approach to design as compared to the Q10 and is a bit reminiscent of the HTC ChaCha. BlackBerry has ditched the exotic materials used in the Q10 and has had to settle with simple plastic for the chassis in order to keep the price down. In doing so, the phone has shed quite a bit of weight and feels a lot lighter to hold. Unlike the Q10, the Q5 has a completely sealed back, but it’s not unibody. The matte finish feels really nice and doesn’t attract fingerprints easily; however, we wished BB had done something more with the back, as it looks a bit bland.

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A good looker

Dimension-wise, the Q5 is more or less identical to the Q10. There’s a flap on the side that hides the microSD and microSIM slots. The buttons are placed in their usual positions and they have a good tactile feel. The QWERTY keypad has undergone a slight change and while it’s still comfortable to use, we prefer the keyboard of the Q10 over this. The island style keys are well spaced out but are also a little smaller than the ones on the Q10. Due to this, we found ourselves often hitting the backspace key instead of “L” as it takes a little getting used to. Overall, the Q5 is built well, feels good to hold and we like the understated look of the phone.

Comfortable keys

Features
The Q5 features the same sized screen as the Q10, but instead of a Super AMOLED 3.1-inch, we have an IPS panel. Viewing angles are still good and so are the colours, but somehow we found the display of the Q10 to be slightly better. You won’t notice this until you place them side by side. BB10.1 works smoothly for the most part thanks to 2GB of RAM. However, we did notice a little lag creeping in intermittently when swiping between homescreens, and that’s probably due to the SoC.

UI takes a little getting used to, but it’s fun after a while

The Q5 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 (MSM8230) chipset that consists of two CPU cores running at 1.2GHz. Like the Q10, we have productivity apps like Docs to Go, File Manager, Reminder, Print to Go, Dropbox as well as social apps like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare etc. The Reminder app is also linked to Evernote.  

Media
The Q5 has lesser onboard storage of just 8GB, out of which roughly 4GB is usable. You can expand it via a microSD card slot. BB Link is just as painful to use as before and it’s faster to simply browse through the drives and copy data. In the Q5, though, media files on our SD card showed up immediately in the respective apps.

Offers decent media experience

We have a very basic music and video player on the Q5. The device reads FLAC, WMA, MP3 and varied video codecs like AVI, MKV and MP4. Images and videos appear crisp with vivid colours, but due to the small screen, you won’t be watching full length movies. The audio is really good, however, through the external speaker as well as earphones. There’s not much by way of equalisers either. Another common feature that’s missing is FM Radio.

Connectivity
The BB Q5 is a quad-band GSM and 3G device. The Indian version does not support LTE, though. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi ‘n’, GLONASS, Bluetooth, NFC and HDMI. The web browser does a pretty good job of rendering web pages and is fast too. The browsing experience is not as great compared to larger display phones, but is not terrible either. In order to cut corners, BlackBerry has done away with the microHDMI port as well.

Browsing experience is not the best but usable

Camera
The primary shooter is a 5MP sensor; it manages pretty decent outdoor shots, but indoors is not the best.  The f/2.4 sensor is capable of some good macros, but there’s quite a bit of noise in the picture and the level of detail is not the best. The camera has continuous focus, but touch-to-focus is absent. Touching the screen immediately snaps a picture. There isn’t much in terms of customisation, though. There’s the new HDR mode, Burst, Stabilization and Normal shooting modes. You can select between a bunch of scenes like Action, Whiteboard, Night and Beach.

Indoor shots aren’t that detailed and noise-free

Battery life
The Q5 packs in a slightly larger 2180 mAh battery, which does wonders thanks to the smaller screen size. The Q5 breezed through our 8-hour loop test and had about 64 percent battery to spare, which is very impressive. There’s no doubt that the phone will easily last you a day or two before needing a charge. Also, since the Q5 has an IPS display, the whites don’t drain the battery as much as they would on AMOLED.

Verdict and price in India
The first piece of good news is that the Q5 is substantially cheaper than the Q10. BlackBerry has had to cut down on some key specifications and the materials used to build it, but overall you’re left with a very good experience that comes close to its more expensive brethren. However, Rs 24,990 is still quite expensive for the Q5 as we would peg the value of the handset at not more than Rs 20,000. If BlackBerry drops the price to sub-20k, then the Q5 has the potential for doing well.