First look at the BlackBerry Passport

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

As I just received my BlackBerry Passport yesterday, it will take me a few weeks to put together a proper review of this most unusual yet intriguing new smartphone. 

Geared towards enterprise users and folks who are heavy into text input either through SMS, BBM, email and social media, the Passport brings the most innovative QWERTY keyboard we've seen from BlackBerry and merges it with some clever software as well as a truly unique 4.5-inch touchscreen.

The result is a wide smartphone that even people with large hands will have a hard time holding. The Passport is designed for two-handed use, it is a thumb-typist's device first and foremost and a content consumption tool second.

The large screen, with its high pixel density and lavish screen-size is great for reading and for looking at pictures. For video, however, the square orientation doesn't work great for widescreen content because there's crazy letterboxing above and below the video.

The build quality of the Passport is second to none. All the hallmarks of a great Blackberry device are present and you can feel the amount of obsessive detail that was poured into this device. Yes, it looks quirky and oversized but you can't deny the touches of elegance, symmetry and balance that's quite abundant.

The keyboard feels amazing, the frets in between the rows of keys and below the rear camera break the expanse of space and the metal frame gives it a solid, bad-ass feel. This is a premium device through and through and clearly focused to cater to people who need to blast through emails, memos and messages.

I'm still trying to get accustomed to the feel and width of the Passport and it's a definite change of pace for me. The touch keyboard functionality, which allows you to use the surface like a trackpad, is interesting and useful for certain apps, specially when reading website. Thanks to a powerful processor and healthy helping of RAM, the Passport is quick and responsive. It can multitask very well and render even complex webpages quickly and accurately over WiFi and LTE.

The stereo speakers are loud and clear although they lack bass for playing back music. Voice quality is superb, specially on the speakerphone function. Clearly, BlackBerry made the right decision to focus on the calling functionality for this device. It is something users will quickly appreciate.

Same with the BlackBerry Assistant voice feature, it is quite good. While it doesn't seem to have much of a personality, it is rather efficient in understanding what you want. I am looking forward to testing this feature out at length.

The camera seems to be an improvement over recent BlackBerry cameras, the fake shutter sound for taking photos and video is too darned loud and it apparently cannot be silenced, substituted or muted.

You need to download an entirely new camera app in order to shoot photos in silence. I get the need to have audible warnings sounds for cameras in the workplace, but there's no way you'll be able to take a snapshot of your sleeping baby without waking them up.

While I found the hardware and build of the BlackBerry Passport to be very impressive, I was quickly faced with the ugly truth about the app situation. Even with Amazon store onboard, there's a real dearth of apps for users that are coming from iOS or Android. You can't even find the Kindle app on Amazon, what's up with that? Same with Instagram, any Google apps (Maps, Hangouts, Google Plus). Ditto for games.

Another problem some early Passport users are going to have are apps that aren't optimized for the larger screen, this means you'll only get content on half your screen (see above) which can be frustrating specially if there doesn't seem to be a way to zoom into the photos or text.

Stay tuned for a full review once I've had a chance to spend more time with the Passport.