Blackberry Passport is the newest smart phone from the staple of Blackberry Limited. The Passport, has received lots of flack for its square design, widescreen and clumsy size. In a bid to save the Passport’s reputation, the phablet comes prepackaged with a protective case. Blackberry team argue that when it comes to phones, squares are better than rectangles.
The once-upon-a-time popular smart phone company officially announced the introduction of the Passport on its blog last Tuesday, applauding the passport’s features. The screen is twice as wide as the iPhone 5S screen, bearing 4.5 inches breadth wise, in order to maximize the user experience.
The released statement reads:
“Based on academic typology, the optimal number of characters on a line in a book is 66 characters (current rectangular smartphones show approx. 40 characters and BlackBerry will show 60 characters). BlackBerry Passport offers its size and aspect ratio to accommodate these characters.”
BlackBerry also insists that the wide screen is useful for reading, viewing medical charts, spreadsheets and other detailed documents. However some users feel the overall clumsy size of the device overrules any possible benefit it might offer. The phone might not sit comfortably into a pocket.
The phone’s layout also lacks a full keyboard, omitting several popular keys like shift and caps. The company explains this decision by saying that it helps writing efficiency and speed because “when you are looking to type stories or notes, your virtual keyboard doesn’t cover most of your screen.”
The introduction of the Passport seems like Blackberry’s attempt to regain market share by capitalizing on enterprise functionalities within smartphones. The smartphone would be released in September but the cost has not yet been released to the public.
Unofficial Specifications of the Passport
Network: 2G, 3G, 4G LTE
Display Type: Capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size: 1440 x 1440 pixels, 4.5 inches (~453 ppi pixel density)
Memory Card slot: microSD, up to 64 GB
Internal Memory: 32 GB, 3GB RAM
Speed: HSDPA, HSUPA, LTE
WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth: v4.0, A2DP, LE
NFC: Yes
USB: microUSB v2.0
Primary Camera: Yes
Camera Features: Geo-tagging, face detection, HDR
Video Camera: 1080p@30fps
Secondary Camera: Yes
OS: BlackBerry 10.1 OS
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
CPU: Quad-core
Sensors: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM, BBM 6
Colors: Black
Battery: Non-removable Li-Ion 3450 mAh battery
Image credit: crackberry.com