BlackBerry Priv 2020: BlackBerry's Sweetheart Phone By TechOdyssey

Hey everybody welcome back to tech odyssey, so today, I'm here to take another look at the blackberry. PRI blackberry is a sweetheart phone and the reason I call it. That is because this was the very first darling of the android world in blackberry made by them. This is not a blackberry mobile phone. This right here made by blackberry themselves. Now they did a lot of really cool innovative things like putting a six core processor in there, which was pretty cutting edge in the year 2015 upped it to three gigabytes of ram, and they brought back the sliding keyboard.

So before we get into talking about the PRI, I do want to say if this was your first time stopping by the channel. I appreciate you being here if you enjoyed the video, please hit the like and the subscribe button and the little notification bell, so you can get updates when new videos come out. Let's take a look at the prep. The year is 2015, and things really haven't worked out very well with blackberry, 10, the operating system that blackberry designed from scratch to compete directly with android and iOS. Many of us have used the phones, we like them and remember them very well.

We've got the q10, we've got the classic. We've got the passport, the z10, all those wonderful devices, and this one came out in 2015. Blackberry 10 had been on the decline so had their market share with the phones that people were carrying, and they were flocking to android and iPhone. So blackberry decided that they were going to go ahead, jump on the bandwagon which they missed the boat the first time and because they tried to make their own operating system. This is the brainchild of blackberry under john chin's leadership.

The PRI. Now one thing with this phone: it was really polarizing in the beginning, because everybody said: oh, it's not a real blackberry because it's not running a blackberry OS. It's running android. I had some mixed feelings about it myself, because I genuinely love blackberry 10, and I continue to use those devices for a while, but being the blackberry fan that I am. I went out, and I bought this on day one, and it's funny, because I posted on crack berry, because I used to be in crack berry all over the place in their like every day.

It's just you know if you were a blackberry person, a lot of people were there, so I remember whenever it launched- and I went over to ATT- maybe expecting there to be a little of a line, but I didn't expect there to be too many devices, so I wanted to get there as soon as the door opened. So I could get one, and I remember getting there and nobody was waiting outside. It was just me and I posted you know, took a picture and posted on crack brown, like hey, guys, check out the line for the new craft beer, it's crazy, so uh yeah. I went ahead and I bought it day. One actually bought one for me and I got one for my wife because in addition to supporting blackberry and enjoying them, I tried to get my wife to use blackberries too, and she totally loved the passport.

The PRI she didn't like as much. She wasn't real crazy about android back then, but also, if you've used this phone, you know that it gets really hot and the battery life is not very good. So, back to the phone came out in 2015 revolutionary in the blackberry world, we're talking a six core processor, we're talking an AMOLED display three gigabytes of ram 32 mega, sorry, 32, gigabytes of storage, a lot of good things went into this phone and this sliding keyboard, which is really kind of the biggest thing. I want to talk about here, and one of the reasons why this phone, I call it the sweetheart phone, just like the title alludes to people love this phone. Not so much because of you know the problems with the heat, the processor, the battery life.

They love it because it's a slider, and it has the physical keyboard, but also the touch sensitive keyboard and the full touch sensitive screen. That's not anything that we really had before. Of course, we had the blackberry storm, but that was in a different time and place. It was smaller. Of course, it had issues, everybody else had issues, but it was a novel phone when they made it and a lot of people were like.

We need a slider, we need a slider, we need a slider, so blackberry is actually a really innovative company, and they decided to go ahead and go the slider route when they went with the PRI, but in addition to being a sliding phone with the keyboard, it's also a touch sensitive keyboard that you can use your swipe gestures on, which is really neat, and it was really innovative. It's not just like. Oh hey, yeah. We threw this keyboard on here, which I never really cared too much for the keyboard. Just it had a real short key press, and it felt a little felt a little plastic.

It wasn't my overall favorite, but I did enjoy it because you could have the best of both worlds and the blackberry, 10 keyboard overlays was actually perfect and, of course they put it in here. Just like the one on the blackberry 10 devices. We kind of take these things for granted now, because keyboards have gotten so good, especially on the iPhone and then a lot of the ones on android, especially if you use board or swift key. You've got the swipe typing now. One of the reasons people love blackberry, so much back in the day was because they had these wonderful physical keyboards that worked so well.

You never had to worry about it. You could hand jam an email on here like it was nothing and not even worry about where you were pushing the buttons, because they worked. That's something people still appreciate in blackberry and why people still want them to be around interstage right. You have an all touchscreen keyboard, all touchscreen phone, but then you also have the wonderful keyboard on the inside and I kind of thought it was a small keyboard um. It was a little cramped, and it is but the problem with it.

So much for me was that it was a little recessed under the speaker here. It never really felt entirely natural typing on it for me, but some people really loved it, and you know with any keyboard. It's one of those things where you just kind of have to get used to it, but that, in addition to this 5.3 inch, AMOLED display you've got the two megapixel front-facing selfie camera. I don't really know why they went with one that small, but it had an 18 megapixel camera, which, back in the day, was really impressive. If you looked at anything on the prior blackberry devices, you were likely getting an 8 megapixel on the back or, if you bumped up to the passport you're getting a 13 megapixel, they had the 2 megapixel selfie cameras as well.

Of course, blackberry was never really known for their photography skills and the great cameras that they had on their phone. So getting the 18 on the back was a huge deal now, in addition to that, they have the really nice speaker on the front. You got the speaker bar on the bottom. Everything worked out well, SD card support, everything that you needed, but it was running android, and it was revolutionary in many ways like I said, we've got the keyboard, but also the shift to the OS, because this was their first and last real attempt at their own in-house blackberry, android device. Of course, we know how that happened with the rest of them.

We got the deg series, and then they moved on to the key series in the motion with the blackberry mobile TCL license, which is now coming to an end. So when people look back on this phone and some people still use this phone, I get a lot of comments from people like hey, I'm still using my river, hey commented from my river, hey typed, on my PRI, more power to you, guys, I'm glad that you're still enjoying it, and you're still able to use it even now in 2020- and I made another video not too long ago talking about what we would need from a new blackberry device in the future. If we're going to be able to continue using them, what would blackberry make that would make everybody happy, and I think that the right answer to that question is probably something that looks like this. If somehow they do another licensing agreement with somebody, or they decide to make their own, which I sincerely doubt that they will. This form factor right here, I think, is probably the best option, because it gives everybody the best of both worlds.

People normal consumers, typically don't really care too much about a physical keyboard, whereas I care a lot about a physical keyboard, as probably many of you who are watching this device. This video do, but also you like having all touch screen because you get all the screen real estate whenever phones are pushing the envelope with the 6.8 inch 6.9 and 6.7-inch screens on their phones, it's kind of hard to look at it and go back and say you know what I think we should do. Another four and a half inch screen with a keyboard that takes up a third of the real estate on the front that doesn't move phones. I don't think that it will move phones. Yes, there will be the dedicated blackberry people that go out and buy it, but at the same point in time you need it to be a viable device.

If somebody walks in the store that they can pick it up, because you need to sell phones, if blackberry thought they could still cell phones, they would have continued to make them as opposed to licensing them out, but they recognize that there is a market for their devices plain and simple people still love them, and people love this phone and, like I said this right here, I think, is the sweetheart phone in blackberry's inventory everybody kind of likes. This phone people really love the storm. People ask for a slider for so many years and I never really understood it. I was in craft beer, I'm like why do they want a slider? What do they want? A slider I didn't personally use the storm, actually just bought one. It's on the way here, so you'll get to see that soon but yeah.

I never had a sliding phone like this, so I was like why in the world, do people want this when you can have this, because I was in the die, hard keyboard category, but it makes sense. Look at this. You have a large screen phone right here, but then, if you can do this on top of it, and you get the physical keyboard along with the screen real estate, and then you can have a beautiful OLED panel, you can have speakers on the front. You can have all sorts of nice things that you don't have to compromise on. If half of your phone is dedicated to this, which I personally love, but the thing is, is I want OOP turn black boom beach on accident? I want another blackberry phone and I want them to make something: that's going to appeal to people so that they can sell it and make money, so they can continue to make more phones, and I think the answer might be right here.

It's gorgeous. It looks nice, it's form functional. Furthermore, it works both ways: business in the front party underneath the screen. You can do all of it and that's why people like it so much. You can go back to it, and you don't have to compromise.

If you get a smaller, if you had a smaller phone back in the day like a classic or a q10 or a z10, it fails in comparison to this or pales in comparison. Whatever the expression is its just nice to be able to have your cake need it too. You can still have a blackberry, but you have the great screen that goes along with it and today into in the social media, world and people are taking selfies all the time. You're doing things more than just typing on your phone, a phone is more of an extension than you that than just a communications device. Back in the day when this phone came out, we were at a turning point in the operating system world for android and iPhone where people realized on the back end that people use this for entertainment.

They use it as an extension of themselves for social media for their interaction with the world and that's what people do now and to be able to do all that, but also have the keyboard and not have to compromise on the phone experience, I think, is a winning ticket and I think it's why people like it so much. No, nobody really went on and on and on about the performance or went on and on and on about, you know being able to play games on it, went on and on about different aspects of the phone, but what they did appreciate and what everybody loves is this right here, and I think that it's pretty nice, and it's pretty easy to see why people like it so much. You don't have it's a hybrid design phone that I think was way ahead of its time and maybe now we can be in the time to see something like this again or at least from some manufacturer. It would be great to get something like that. So that's all I have on this look back at the blackberry PRI and what made it so special why it was iconic and why people love it so much because of the wonderful sliding keyboard options.

So that's all I've got if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them down in the comment section I'll get back with you. If you enjoyed the video, please hit the like and the subscribe button and the little notification bell. So we get updates when new videos come out and as always, I appreciate you being here thanks for watching I'll, see you guys next time.

Source : TechOdyssey