BlackBerry 7 OS Hands-On

At a Glance

Adept's Rating

Our Verdict

The BlackBerry Torch 9810 improves happening where the original Torch left-of-center bump off, simply in eyeglasses information technology remains farther posterior the contender.

When BlackBerry 6 OS debuted last summertime, I applauded RIM for making roughly much-required improvements to the substance abuser interface and adding essential features to the chopine. Simply I also thought that the platform was just a slight upgrade from version 5, and that it felt maggoty and dated in comparison with Android, iOS, and even WebOS purely on aesthetics. For the next OS update, I wanted RIM to take chances. The press is constantly accusing the company of failing to introduce, so wherefore not surprise entirely of us satiated journalists and completely redo BlackBerry OS? Or how about handsome the phones some of that QNX love we saw in the Playbook?

Well, brace yourselves: BlackBerry 7 Bone looks a lot like BlackBerry 6 OS, leastwise in visual aspect and functionality. On the incomparable hand, RIM has added excellent features, much as BlackBerry Balance, Hypertext markup language 5 support, NFC support (Temerarious 9900 only) and a fun augmented-realism app. On the other hand, many an of those additions are already found on new platforms. Once again, RIM seems to be playing catch-up.

One important yet unfortunate thing to note: BlackBerry 7 OS offers no "legacy support," meaning that older BlackBerrys, symmetric those running version 6, cannot get an upgrade.

Family Screen and Apps

Else than extraordinary aesthetic tweaks, the home screen and apps drawer look pretty similar to their counterparts in version 6. The icons are more colorful, and the font is sharper and large, just ultimately the look is still BlackBerry-esque–and that's not needs a good affair. While the home screen and apps musical arrangement is useful and easy to practice, it is wanting in mode and freshness.

Reminiscent of pre-2.0 Android, BlackBerry 7 Operating system has a vertically slippy applications drawer. You can slide IT clear up to view each of your apps, operating theater slideway it down to view none the least bit. You can too pass it to view united or two rows of apps at a time. I best-loved to observe mine and then that one row of apps was showing at all multiplication, allowing easy access to the apps I used the most.

You can also slide apps horizontally and view apps filtered away categories such As Favorites, Media, Downloads, and Frequent. To add an app to your Favorites, you simply touch and cargo hold the app's ikon; a pop-finished computer menu appears with that selection and different others such as 'hide', 'launch', and 'delete'. These multiple views sound a chip excessive on paper, but I liked having some choice in how I set my home screen.

Browser and Worldwide Seek

Last year, Blackberry bush 6 OS introduced a WebKit browser, which was a vast upgrade to the platform. It also added pinch-to-zoom multitouch support, tabbed browsing, and autowrap text zoom (when you zoom in to a obstruct of text, the font automatically wraps in a column so that none of it cuts off). This year, RIM has added Hypertext mark-up language 5 underpin, but woefully information technology still hasn't incorporated full Flash Player 10 support. The browser played all of the HTML 5 video I threw at it, and it attained a tag of 230 on HTML5Test.com, an overall dandy score.

According to RIM, Network pages give birth a 40 percentage faster loading time in 7 Atomic number 76 than they serve along the version 6 web browser. The speed encouragement is unquestionably apparent: Media-taxing pages unexploded quickly over both Wi-Fi and AT&T's web when I tested the browser on the Torch 9810. My primary problem, however, was with the browser's handling of nip-to-zoom and scrolling. Sometimes pages went from small to extremely increased in one catch–blowup wasn't gradual. And pages took some prison term to set about unpixelated after I thin. It was quite frustrating.

With Blackberry bush 6 OS, Brim introduced Universal Search. iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7 all have cosmopolitan search, but Flange's version is one of the more cosmopolitan implementations. It searches through your contacts, apps, music–just about everywhere on your phone. If you want to quicken the process, you can pinch the settings so that it searches only through specific parts of the phone. I found information technology quite fast, however, and I relied on it heavily to find what I needed in my work force-on tests. Blackberry bush 7 OS now gives you the option to do a phonation command, making universal search that much stronger.

Welcome to the Future, RIM: OpenGL, Augmented Realness, and NFC

BlackBerry 7 OS adds stick out for OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics (for 3D games), HD video recording recording (at 720p), and a digital compass. BlackBerry is pretty much playing catch-up to Mechanical man, iOS, and even Windows Phone 7 with these additions. The platform does cover cardinal passabl new technologies, however: augmented reality and Near Domain Communication.

We've seen augmented reality mostly on Android, in a a couple of apps on iOS, and built into Windows Phone 7 Mango's Cyberspace Explorer. Flange is making a big agitate for Ar with its third-party-developed app Wikitude. Sort of like Layar operating theater Google Goggles, Wikitude is a browser that melds the bodily world with virtual information like Tweets, Flickr photos and Wikipedia information. Even out BlackBerry Courier gets a dose of AR: With Wikitude, you can get word if any of your BBM friends are in close proximity to you. Victimization your phone's whole number compass, you can point your phone's camera at a emplacemen and see any nearby BBM users and haunt, I mean, chitchat at them. If a get through has a personalized embodiment, you'll see that start up on screen. Incorporating the implausibly popular BBM into an app the likes of Wikitude is a very smart motion away RIM. I'm looking forward to seeing more BBM integrating into third-party apps. Wikitude is a free download in BlackBerry App World.

I was real excited to instruct that BlackBerry 7 OS adds sustenanc for NFC, only disappointed when I found that information technology would be addressable only on the BlackBerry Bold 9900. Still, it is extraordinary to see RIM embracing this up-and-coming technology, which will not only allow you to constitute payments with your phone but as wel commute information (such as a phone turn Oregon photo) with another NFC-enabled telephone set.

BlackBerry Balance, BlackBerry Protect, and Other Apps

All 7 OS phones come equipped with Blackberry bush Balance, which helps you maintain your personal and business life complete on one phone. When related to your company's BlackBerry Enterprise Host, Balance keeps personal information separate and business info certified.

The incredibly serviceable BlackBerry Protect lets you back up your information and do multiple devices. If your Blackberry bush gets stolen OR lost, you buttocks remotely locate it, rub it, lock it, or change the volume of the ringer. Like Balance, this service is completely resign for Blackberry bush 7 OS users.

Last not least, the premium version of Documents to Give way is now available free of charge on completely BlackBerry 7 OS phones. Users leave now be able to frame, edit, and view Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. This gain is just one more fantabulous business lineament BlackBerry OS offers its enterprise customers.

Bottom Line

Acting watch-upward ISN't necessarily a poor thing: IT shows that Flange is watching the competition and trying to stay relevant in this oh-so-enamored mobile world. BlackBerry 7 OS doesn't real add any groundbreaking, one-of-a-soft features, only it is a solid update all the synoptic. The conflict in performance between 6 OS and 7 Operating system is very apparent, and I'm excited to see where RIM goes with NFC.

At the same time, I remember BlackBerry OS is in dreadful need of a face-lift. I'm opening to get reiterative by saying this release after release, but its user user interface doesn't feel innovative. In fact, in some slipway it reminds me a bit of Windows Phone 6.5. It looks the likes of a not-touch OS with touch support added in. It still feels as if you have to compass through multiple menus to find what you want. For instance, to switch from tranquillize images to video in the camera interface, you have to press the Fare key then scroll almost each the way of life down through the options to get to the video camera.

To be fair, some very truehearted BlackBerry OS fans are out there, and if RIM does try to cause a complete makeover (like switching over to QNX OS à la the BlackBerry Playbook, which the company is rumored to coiffe future twelvemonth), it had better get to sure that the redesign is perfect. Remember the disastrous Blackberry bush Storm? RIM in spades does not want to follow out that over again. Apparently RIM has been playing it safe later that debacle, just I think it is time to involve another risk. BlackBerry 7 OS just barely keeps RIM afloat.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/481886/blackberry_7_os_hands_on.html

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