BlackBerry, back with a bang!

Its square, its the most back-to-business phone ever made, it will make you productive too, but only once you get used to its design and size. The all-new BlackBerry Passport is the riskiest, most cutting edge, most radical mobile phone ever made, writes Rajiv Makhni.

Back to square one

The BlackBerry Passport is a big square device with a big square screen and has been launched to get BlackBerry back to square one and regain lost glory. It’s the most back-to-business phone ever made and it shouts that out from the rooftop.



This is a phone that will make you productive, extremely efficient and discover that you don’t need a laptop to do most things. You can do more things with a BB Passport than all other phones put together. The problem is – to make your life that efficient, you have to get used to a very quirky design and a serious size change in your life.

The hardware rocket

The BB Passport is a very unique device. The closest you can get to understanding the form factor is to put an Indian Passport in your hand and think it’s a phone. It’s exactly the same size and hence, the name. And while it’s heavy at 196 grams, it’s also built like a tank with solid CNC forged metal processing and heavy duty stainless steel construction on the sides.



It’s also one of the best specced phones in the world. A Gorilla Glass 3 4.5 inch x 4.5 inch square screen with a fantastic 1440 x 1440 resolution, 3GB of RAM that mates with a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, 32GB of flash memory with a micro SD slot and 3GB of RAM, Wi-Fi including 5Ghz a/n + ac and Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Miracast, DLNA, GPS, USB on-the-go, micro-HDMI out, active sound leak compensation, plus a natural sound system and one of the loudest and clearest speakers I’ve ever used on a phone. In terms of hardware, this is the Rolls Royce of phones.

Things BlackBerry isn’t known for

Will you be square?

The eventual question is – who is this phone right for? And should you buy it? BlackBerry aims squarely at the power professional and isn’t apologetic about it.



There is a learning curve to typing on it (even for BB veterans), there is a bit of struggle fitting this into any pocket and it does take time to adjust to one-hand operations with something this big and wide. But eventually – when you do, the pay-off is immense.



This is a phone built for a very specific user and thus, those people will totally love it and swear by it. It’s good to see a company like BlackBerry that has been pushed to the edge take risks like this while others play it safe. I hear that the Passport is sold out in all the places it’s been launched.



That’s great news for BB. The Passport may not be the reason why BB starts to fly upwards again but it may well be the reason for it to enter territories closed to it before.

Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3

From HT Brunch, October 5

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