Review: BlackBerry Classic

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

The combination of a touch screen for quick navigation, the touchpad for granular control and editing, as well as the keyboard make using the BlackBerry Classic a pleasure if messaging and typing are what you do most on your smartphone.

BlackBerry Bold fans rejoice! BlackBerry has resurrected the experience, QWERTY-keyboard and legendary “toolbelt,” which has the phone calling buttons as well as the trackpad that made the Bold 9900 the darling of CEOs in boardrooms everywhere as well as the messaging mavens’ tool of choice.

While the new Classic is unmistakably priced as a midrange model (effectively pushing the Passport to flagship status), it is built to an exacting degree, and is one of the most solid devices I’ve held in my hand this year. BlackBerry’s Passport is a tour de force in forward thinking, smartphone design and a daring play in introducing a new product category for new users.

In contrast, the Classic is a known quantity. It resuscitates many ‘classic’ Bold features and melds them with the current BB10 operating system. It really is an effort to modernize the user interface and way of getting things done that has resonated so deeply with users.

I'm talking about the walking wounded that have soldiered on with older BlackBerry 6 or BlackBerry 7 devices and that have refused to move forward to newer BB10 devices such as the Z10, Z30 and most notably the QWERTY keyboard enabled Q10 and Q5. The Classic is for them.

Hardware

 

The Classic is sized just right. The 3.5-inch 720 x 720 pixel display is large enough for dealing with text, email, browsing websites using the ‘Reader Mode’, which strips away formatting and enhances images and text for reading. 

The included QWERTY keyboard is already being hailed as the best that BlackBerry has ever made and has a great feel and response to it.

Coupled with the bevy of  BlackBerry shortcuts and fairly quick thumb-typing skills, it only takes a few hours to days to regain an almost telepathic link with the device for typing emails, messages and even longer paragraphs of text. Having used QWERTY keyboards since I owned my first Treo, I found myself oddly at home for shooting off short messages and emails.

Aided by BB10’s predictive text capabilities (which are smart enough to learn words and your manner of writing), blitzing through responses to emails is fast and efficient.

 

The combination of a touch screen for quick navigation, the touchpad for granular control and editing as well as the keyboard make using the BlackBerry Classic a pleasure if messaging and typing are what you do most on your smartphone.

You find you can attack tasks in a variety of ways and get through more stuff quicker. I only wish the Classic had the option of having a capacitive keyboard for scrolling like the Passport did, but I understand the need for keeping certain key features reserved for the flagship device.

The Classic has a bit of weight to it at 178g, it feels dense and totem-like, which is refreshing in a market where thinner and lighter smartphones have become the norm. It is also extremely durable, I’ve had two instances where the Classic fell to the floor from around three feet, once it even hit a table before landing on the floor.

 

I braced for the worst, cringing as I picked it up to inspect it and guess what? Not a scratch at all. The legendary BlackBerry build quality is in full effect here and you can press and manhandle the Classic all you want and will not get it to creak and wobble.

The metal frame which holds the whole phone together gives the Classic its solid feel and the grippy rubber backplate is a tactile treat that keeps the device from slipping even under the most furious texting sessions. 

The Classic does tend to pick up a lot of dust and pocket lint, that’s why the leather sleeve accessory is a must have for anyone who will likely carry this device in their pants. Another bonus of the device’s weight is that you’ll never doubt that it is there in your pocket where you left it.

After almost two weeks with the Classic as my daily driver, I was able to organize through thousands of emails and easily manage my day-to-day communications from the device. Carrying multiple smartphones on a regular bases, the BlackBerry Classic was consistently the first one to receive emails and messages, allowing me to start responding just as the same messages came in on my iPhone as well as my Nexus 6.

Messaging aside, the key apps I use on a daily basis are available on BlackBerry World and some of the others can be side loaded  via the Amazon App Store or 1Mobile Market. What stumped me though, was that I had no way of integrating my Android Wear-powered Moto 360 or my Jawbone UP24 with the Classic, which was a bit of a pain. 

The 8 megapixel camera on the BlackBerry Classic is decent and will do a good job in outdoor lighting conditions but isn’t a quick draw affair. It lags behind iPhones and even some Android phones out there in terms of speed, but is decent in terms of quality. 

Battery life for this size device is very good and will definitely delight old BlackBerry Bold users who had to deal with less than stellar battery performance. Much of the weight of the BlackBerry classic can likely be attributed to the 2515 mAh battery which will churn out a decent day and a half of use on a single charge.  

The included Qualcomm MSM 8960 1.5GHz dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM isn’t  over the top but proves to be just right for a device with a smaller screen. I popped a 64GB microSD card to carry photos, music and other files which adds a lot to the onboard 16GB of storage. 

Call quality is superb with three microphones sharing noise cancelling duties and I was delighted to enjoy HD voice calls. The speakerphone volume and clarity was similarly above average and it’s refreshing to use a smartphone that’s been refined to improve the voice call experience overall. 

Software 

BlackBerry 10.3 is what the Classic as well as the Passport run on. The big update includes the ability to use a desktop, notebook or a tablet as a second screen device with BlackBerry Blend. I’m a Mac user and installed Blend on my MacBook Pro, while the application isn’t scaled to work on Retina Displays, it does forward many of the SMS, email and BBM functions of the BlackBerry Classic. 

This is great when working on the computer and needing to manage communications without having to pick up the phone. I only wish other applications could be made to work with BlackBerry Blend.

Amazon App Store and BlackBerry World are the two included sources for applications. The former gives the BlackBerry Classic access to Android apps while the BlackBerry World offers BB10 apps optimized for use on the device. 

I also installed 1 Mobile Market which gave me even more access to Android apps that aren’t available on the other two app markets. So, yes I have three sources for apps on the BlackBerry Classic, crazy as it may seem.

While this helps keep me abreast of my favourite apps that have not been made available to BB10, it’s also a less than ideal way to do things. The Android apps aren’t designed for the 3.5-inch screen, some of them manage to fit nicely but there are always compromises. You’d think that the square display on the Classic would be perfect for Instagram but things are less than perfect. 

The BlackBerry Personal Assistant voice app is surprisingly efficient and can search via voice or through typed queries. It doesn't have the sass of Siri and sounds around two generations behind, but is reliable for sending emails, BBMs, text messages as well as checking sports scores and finding restaurants, getting weather and directions. For many people, this is more than enough.

Stick to the BlackBerry World apps, which many Classic users will likely do, and you will be fine.

These work efficiently within BB10’s rock solid OS, but venture away and run bootleg Android apps and your mileage will vary.

Its great that BlackBerry realized they had to employ help from Amazon to boost the app divide but it would have been much better the Classic had official access to Google Play Store and Services.

Conclusion: 

With the BlackBerry Classic, John Chen and Co. can tick off that niggling square on their to-do list. They’ve successfully relaunched the BlackBerry Bold in a modern ecosystem of apps and functionality and should satisfy users who have long missed this type of mission critical device.

The BlackBerry Classic is a messaging wonder, a smartphone that straddles the line between the past and the present and it offers loyalist and Bold users a great platform to finally graduate to. 

People who aren’t fascinated with QWERTY keyboards, who prefer browsing on larger screens and consuming content, will find this a very odd device to consider. Clearly, this midrange business and productivity-focused smartphone is not for them.

In terms of messaging, email, writing and editing documents on the fly, and actual calling and conference calling features, the Classic excels. It may not shine as a smartphone for photos, games or media playback but these are not the intended uses of this device. 

If you can come to terms with that and already know what you need the BlackBerry Classic for, then you’ll be happy with this device for years to come.

Rating: 4 out of 5