Review: BlackBerry Leap

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

The biggest feature of the BlackBerry Leap is its long-life battery. The 2800 mAh battery is rated to last for well over a day of heavy use and is the primary reason for the phone’s solid feel, weight and size. BlackBerry boasts that the Leap can last 25 hours on a full charge.

The past eight months have been a bountiful harvest for BlackBerry in terms of smartphone models. They introduced the BlackBerry Passport, the BlackBerry Classic and now they are pushing out the all-touch BlackBerry Leap as a midrange option.

The BlackBerry Leap is the fourth touch-focused and non-QWERTY keyboard device on BB10. The first was the Z10 followed by the stellar flagship Z30 and the emerging market focused Z3 (which hasn’t made its way to Canada).

Moving away from the Z nomenclature, the Leap is a hardy handset that’s clearly designed to be utilitarian, rugged, and last all day long.

Design and key features 

The BlackBerry Leap is a rather large and brick-like smartphone. It is covered in rubber, which gives it a great tactile feel and the grey colour is subtle, elegant and contemporary. There’s something about the Leap’s monolithic design that recalls the BlackBerry PlayBook, which was similarly durable and built-to last.

So while the design seems stark and minimalist, there are actually various subtle touches like the dot textured finish on the backplate as well as the microdots that lift up the rear speaker from a flat surface enough to get the sound through.

I like that there is nothing frivolous about the BlackBerry Leap and it can look and feel like a development handset, the utilitarian look and feel may not be everyone’s bag, but this is a serious handset that’s built for working and not for showing off.

The 5” LCD 24 bit color, 1280 x 720 HD resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio isn’t as delectacble as the Z30’s AMOLED display, but it is plenty bright and clear for reading, watching video and slicing through email and messages.

The 8 MP auto-focus rear facing camera features a 5x digital zoom, flash, continuous & touch to focus, video image stabilization, 1080p HD video recording. This camera isn’t the fastest but given good light or the use of the flash, it will take good pictures.

A front-facing 2MP fixed-focus front facing camera with 3x digital zoom and 720p HD video recording is ideal for selfies and video conferencing.

The biggest feature of the BlackBerry Leap is its long-life battery. The 2800 mAh battery is rated to last for well over a day of heavy use and is the primary reason for the phone’s solid feel, weight and size. BlackBerry boasts that the Leap can last 25 hours on a full charge.

You can now boost your battery life by up to 15% by customizing your Battery Saving Profile, easily accessible in the Quick Settings. Quickly select the settings you would like to restrict or remain active to conserve power.  BlackBerry understands that a phone designed for busy entrepreneurs and startups, needs to survive hectic workdays and nighttime events, this one has what it takes.

The BlackBerry Leap seems to be running on a variant of an older dual-core Qualcomm MSM 8960 1.5 GHz processor (circa 2012), it does have 2GB of RAM, which is great, specially for multitasking, but I’m not sure why BlackBerry opted to use a three-year old processor on a brand-new product line. Sure, the current software seems to run fine, but I’m just worried that this may be a limiting factor moving forward.

Software

As for the software, the Leap features the latest BB10 10.3 build, with the personal assistant and integration with BlackBerry Blend, which creates a synergistic connection between your Leap and your notebook or tablet. Using Blend in tandem with the BlackBerry Leap, I could easily read and reply to emails, BBMs and texts while using my MacBook.

BlackBerry Blend is a significant feature for entrepreneurs; the ability to see more information at-a-glance and have access to all the messaging features of their mobile device and BlackBerry Hub is a great time saver and helps make the BlackBerry Leap fade in the background.

BB 10.3 is focused on productivity and messaging and the BlackBerry Hub is unparalleled in containing and organizing messages as they come in.

Personally, Hub is the one feature I miss when using my iPhone or an Android device. Like Carly Simon sings, “Nobody does it better,” at least when it comes to handling messaging from various sources.

For apps, you do get access to BlackBerry World as well as Amazon App Store and can install 1Mobile Market to get sideloaded .APKs of Android apps running on the Leap. Most of my go-to applications ran well and without a hitch including some apps designed specifically for Android (i.e. Instagram, Netflix).

BlackBerry has also created a notable mix of cases and accessories including a Flex Shell case which doubles as a kickstand to prop up the Leap as well as a handsome charging dock which is ideal for a office or home setting where you can charge your phone as well as see notifications of the clock app.

The intended segment of users, startups and entrepreneurs, as well as BlackBerry devotees looking to move from their Z10 whose contracts have expired, will like what the BlackBerry Leap has to offer and most specially its long battery life and improved overall performance.

The QWERTY-keyboard focused users might not be attracted to the Leap and that's perfectly fine, BlackBerry has some great offerings for them including the Classic as well as the Passport.

The BlackBerry Leap is a no-nonsense midrange smartphone which brings the latest BB10 software running on a somewhat dated processor, but performance doesn't seem to suffer at all.

BlackBerry Leap will be available from Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless, Sasktel, TELUS, WIND Mobile,  ShopBlackBerry, and select Tbooth wireless and WIRELESSWAVE locations starting on May 7^th, 2015, for as low as $0.00 on contract. 

Rating: 4 out of 5