BlackBerry 10

After a number of delays and setbacks, BlackBerry 10 is finally here, and BlackBerry's new mobile platform can finally take its first breath as it steps out into the mobile market.
Kicking off the BB10 revolution is the BlackBerry Z10, a phone tasked with reigniting the ailing fortunes of the Canadian firm. But it's the software the handset is running that is really the key to BlackBerry's success, or ultimate demise.
The BlackBerry smartphone range has been in desperate need of a reboot for a while as the likes of iOS 6, Android Jelly Bean and Windows Phone 8 have outstripped the now extremely outdated BB OS7 platform.
Whereas the other platforms have witnessed incremental upgrades, BlackBerry 10 is a completely new offering – BlackBerry has scrapped the BB OS7 base and rebuilt from the ground up.
BB 10 sees the implementation of a whole new user interface, doing away with the familiar BlackBerry system we're all used to in favour of something that resembles the likes of Android and iOS, although with its own unique features.
BlackBerry 10 has merged homescreens, widgets, app lists and a unified inbox into one slick interface, offering up an easy-to-navigate user experience.

Lock screen

The first thing you're greeted with on BlackBerry 10 is the lock screen, which not only shows the time and date, but also notifications, unread messages and upcoming calendar events.
There's a button to launch the camera straight from the lock screen to grab a quick snap, just hold down on the icon for a couple of seconds.
To unlock a touchscreen BB 10 handset you need to slide your finger up the screen. As you do, the homescreen below will begin to appear, giving you a sneak peek of what's underneath.

Homescreen

The main BlackBerry 10 homescreen is comprised of 'Active Frames', technically mini-applications, which give you an overview of information from a particular app and launch the full version when tapped.

BB10 will display up to eight of these active frames, showing your most recently used apps with the latest app appearing in the top-left position.
Only four active frames can fit on the screen at a time, so you'll need to scroll down to see the rest – which all seems a little pointless, since you can just as quickly swipe sideways to access the app list and launch the app you want from there.
For those of you who may be concerned that these 'Active Frames' could be both data and battery-intensive, BlackBerry assures us that this is not the case, with the QNX core of BlackBerry 10 providing efficient power management, and the frames only downloading the minimum amount of data required for them to update.
When you're in an app there's no back button. Instead, with BB10 you use a gesture to exit applications by running your finger up from the bottom of the screen.
While this is easy to do, those who are already familiar with other smartphones will find the action pretty unnatural, and it takes a while to get used to the new way of doing things on BlackBerry 10.

Interface

Swiping from right to left will take you to the app list, with 16 apps on the screen at any one time.
If you have more than 16 apps, additional pages are added and can be accessed by swiping the same way again, which is familiar territory for iOS and Android users.
At the bottom of both the homescreen and app list you'll notice a shortcut bar, with quick links to the phone, search and camera applications, enabling you to quickly jump to these regularly used features.
There's a pleasant fading animation as you flick between pages, and you'll see the previous page of apps fade away to the side of the screen, to be replaced by the new page.

Peek and Flow

Peek and Flow are two core aspects that come heavily baked into BlackBerry 10 and they dictate the way you use the system.
Flow refers to the way the whole of BB 10 operates, as you glide between applications and screens with no hard navigation tools such as the back or home buttons that are found on rival handsets.
It's very different to any system we've experienced before, so it took us a few days to get our heads around the various gestures required to effectively use BB10.
At times we wished there was a simple back button below the screen, since it wasn't always clear how to return to the previous screen. But the more we used BlackBerry 10 the more we became used to the way it needs to be used.
Our concern here is that BB 10 requires a relatively steep learning curve for everyone, even those who have owned BlackBerry handsets in the past.

It becomes easier once you've played with BlackBerry 10 for a few days, but we fear customers may be turned off in-store when they preview a handset.
Now onto Peek, which is the smart little gesture enabling you to check your latest notifications and messages without having to exit the current app you're using.
As you swipe up over the screen, BB10 will minimise the pane you're viewing and display notification icons down the left side.
This includes icons for new texts, emails, BBMs, social updates and missed calls, and if any of these pique your interest then continue your finger's motion to the right and the screen will slide over to reveal the BlackBerry Hub so you can see who the message is from.
If it's just a boring newsletter you can return to the app or video you were viewing without having to go back to the app list and navigate to it. Unless it's the TechRadar newsletter, which you'll obviously want to read straight away.
The whole BlackBerry 10 interface does appear to be very smooth with no sign of lag, which makes for a pleasing user experience – once you've worked out the various gestures required to get around, that is.

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