My Blackberry Z10 experience and problems

D

djiceman

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Since I dont see any local review/issue threads, thought I'd give it a go....

Picked up the z10 on the 23rd (would have picked up on the 22nd, but the sandton city mtn store needed to confirm if the model was LTE enabled - STL100-1, they promised its LTE and wrote so on my pickup slip, my research shows this is not an LTE model)

My primary use of a cellphone is email and phone calls. My old phone was a BB 9800.

The good -
Smooth interface
Gestures are something new and fresh compared using specific buttons
Virtual keyboard is great, very fast and predictive text is excellent
Web browsing is fast (in terms of working within the browser)
Email handling/display seems on par with android

Today at 11am, its now broken.

The bad -
no longer picks up wifi networks
can no longer browse the net (on Edge or 3G depending on MTN's mood)
BBM does not work - messages are not sent or received
App world does not load - when app world did load, it gave some error message and then closed
Lack of app support (i just need whatsapp, skype and a data usage counter app would have been nice)
I seemed to have used 180mb in 2 days, no idea how though:confused:

Looks like itll be going back to the store tomorrow.
 
Remember that Research in Motion/BlackBerry spent millions on developers. If they moved their app from android platform over to BlackBerry they would each receive $1500 OR SO
 
djiceman said:
can no longer browse the net (on Edge or 3G depending on MTN's mood)
BBM does not work - messages are not sent or received
App world does not load - when app world did load, it gave some error message and then closed
Lack of app support (i just need whatsapp, skype and a data usage counter app would have been nice)
I seemed to have used 180mb in 2 days, no idea how though:confused:
Click to expand...

Sounds like you ran out of data on your internet bundle to me.

Not connecting to wifi is weird, have you tried removing the password to your network and take it from there?

I'm willing to bet you're missing something ridiculous ;)
 
djiceman said:
Since I dont see any local review/issue threads, thought I'd give it a go....

Picked up the z10 on the 23rd (would have picked up on the 22nd, but the sandton city mtn store needed to confirm if the model was LTE enabled - STL100-1, they promised its LTE and wrote so on my pickup slip, my research shows this is not an LTE model)

My primary use of a cellphone is email and phone calls. My old phone was a BB 9800.

The good -
Smooth interface
Gestures are something new and fresh compared using specific buttons
Virtual keyboard is great, very fast and predictive text is excellent
Web browsing is fast (in terms of working within the browser)
Email handling/display seems on par with android

Today at 11am, its now broken.

The bad -
no longer picks up wifi networks
can no longer browse the net (on Edge or 3G depending on MTN's mood)
BBM does not work - messages are not sent or received
App world does not load - when app world did load, it gave some error message and then closed
Lack of app support (i just need whatsapp, skype and a data usage counter app would have been nice)
I seemed to have used 180mb in 2 days, no idea how though:confused:

Looks like itll be going back to the store tomorrow.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking that the 180mb download may be related to initial setup. Downloading contacts synched to your email, app updates etc.
 
I read another user on Facebook having similar problems so he is also taking his back. It's typical of a company in financial problems to skimp on hardware quality.
 
Interesting, please report back and let us know what was really the problem.
 
From which service provider did you get your BB from? Would be interested to see on what package you got it on as well.

djiceman said:
Since I dont see any local review/issue threads, thought I'd give it a go....

Picked up the z10 on the 23rd (would have picked up on the 22nd, but the sandton city mtn store needed to confirm if the model was LTE enabled - STL100-1, they promised its LTE and wrote so on my pickup slip, my research shows this is not an LTE model)

My primary use of a cellphone is email and phone calls. My old phone was a BB 9800.

The good -
Smooth interface
Gestures are something new and fresh compared using specific buttons
Virtual keyboard is great, very fast and predictive text is excellent
Web browsing is fast (in terms of working within the browser)
Email handling/display seems on par with android

Today at 11am, its now broken.

The bad -
no longer picks up wifi networks
can no longer browse the net (on Edge or 3G depending on MTN's mood)
BBM does not work - messages are not sent or received
App world does not load - when app world did load, it gave some error message and then closed
Lack of app support (i just need whatsapp, skype and a data usage counter app would have been nice)
I seemed to have used 180mb in 2 days, no idea how though:confused:

Looks like itll be going back to the store tomorrow.
Click to expand...
 
Did you install any apps on it?

Might be that the sync settings for your mail/apps/weather widget, etc. might be too aggressive.

It doesn't use BIS anymore, so it's almost like my S2 Android phone, right?
 
i am thinking of getting a blackberry z10 with LTE.
does anyone know what are the model number/numbers of the bb z10 that are lte equipped ?
 
xcpointx said:
Sounds like you ran out of data on your internet bundle to me.

Not connecting to wifi is weird, have you tried removing the password to your network and take it from there?

I'm willing to bet you're missing something ridiculous ;)
Click to expand...

I actually think it is the LTE

I remember when the LTE iPhone came out there was a setting that had to be changed. Some network issue.
 
Got our complimentary Z10's yesterday and here is some info (I am currently using an iPhone 4 and am used to Android)

  • Setup is not very streamlined. Will be interesting to see how old BB users cope. As an iOS user, setup is really all over the place.
  • Phone did not setup the right date/timezone. Even more shocking (considering SA is a launch country) is that the timezone settings does not contain Johannesburg or Capetown and on all our phones it defaulted to Rekjavik.
  • If have not been able to setup push mail via the normal GMail account. For our Google Apps accounts I use Google's Exchange/ActiveSync which by the sounds of it Google will drop
  • Using my icloud.com account for private mail/calendaring does not use push at all and syncs have to be setup manually - annoying. This works super slick on iOS and just as well on Android.
  • Alarm clock - I know this is petty, but I am used to have 4 alarms (2 for weekedays and 2 for weekends) with different times. BB10 allows one. So now I need to download and install a separate alarm app - annoying.
  • Noob issue? I found no obvious way to associate my contact information with my BBM (similar to marking your contact details as "Me" on iOS/Mac
  • The keyboard fails to show - this caused issues when setting up mail (where you type the mail address, the field had focus but no keyboard) and separately Facebook and Twitter. Had to reboot twice (after FB config, it did not work with Twitter - another reboot).
  • The alarm initially failed to work - no sound playing although alarm sound set. Had to set and test it 3 times until it took.
  • The Hub is going to be a mess. If you have LinkedIn, FB, Twitter, BBM and a number of email accounts you will probably need to filter out back and forth. The concept is great but the UX/UI could be better.

The device itself is nice. The NFC functions cool (i.e. exchanging BBM contacts by "spooning" both phones lol) but the OS and apps have that "unfinished"/"rushed" feel to it.

At times the apps feel sluggish - especially when you open and switch - those are the standard apps such as mail/calendar/contacts. Perhaps an initial "warm up phase".

Biggest peeve sofar is the lack of a simple iOS lock-screen (was also a dislike with some Android versions) and some UX does not feel very smooth.

TBH if I had bought this device cash or on contract (especially after having an iPhone/Android device before) I would have returned it already based on the initial frustrations.
 
Alarm CLock - Create calendar entries labelled 'Alarm 1' 'Alarm 2' etc etc. This enables you to customise repeating days.

Keyboard - will show whenever you cursor is in an input field. If ever it doesn't show and you need it, a 2 fingerered swipe up will bring it up. But Im willing to bet your cursor isnt in a text field.

Hub - go to settings and choose which of those accounts you would like to be displayed in the hub.

Lock screen - is black. Or do you want the screen to be permanently lit up (consuming battery?)

Date/time - should have synced up with your service provider if you had a sim card in. It did for me.

ActiveSync - works perfectly for me. I'm using Outlook Exchange though. If you're having issues, I'd point more to Google's implementation than the device having issues with ActiveSync

PushMail - if your account supports push mail, and you enable the push mail checkbox in account setup you should get push mail.

Icloud - I don't know much about, but as it's an Apple product it is designed to work seamlessly with Apple devices. I don't think it has CalDav support (which is a standard for calendar sharing/updates). In other words I think Icloud is a proprietary platform that you can only use on Apple devices. Move your calendar to Outlook, Gmail, or some other cloud service..
Read more: http://macamour.com/blog/2011/11/06...cal-and-address-book-to-blackberry-handhelds/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3401387?start=0&tstart=0
 
So the guy in the shop did a factory reset(first option before booking it in) and everything seems to be working.

Still have some issues though:
BBM is really slow for delivery of messages
Battery life is too short, I can deal with a daily charge, but the battery needs to last till I get home
At times, the app world still gives me an error and then closes
The "phone button" for opening the call menu/dail pad is unresponsive and requires multiple attempts
With wifi on, the phone will last 4-5 hours (this might also be true for most smart phones?)


Im on the MTN 200 package - R399pm with R200 airtime and 250mb data. Ive contacted MTN about increasing my data bundle to 600mb and to provide me with unlimited BBM as im a contract customer for 14 years.

The cellc offer for the z10 is cheaper and comes with 600mb data and unlimited BBM(chat/file sharing). This was the basis for my request to MTN, still awaiting a response.

Regarding the models and which are LTE capable:

STL100-1 RFG81UW 3G Network HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
STL100-2 RFH121LW HSDPA 850 / 900 / 2100, 4G Network LTE 800 / 900 / 1800 / 2600
STL100-3 RFK121LW HSDPA 800 / 850 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100, LTE 700 / 850 / 1700 / 1900
STL100-3 RFF91LW HSDPA 800 / 850 / 1900 / 2100, LTE 700 / 850 / 1700 / 1900
STL100-4 RFA91LW CDMA 800 / 1900, HSDPA 900 / 2100, LTE 700 MHz Class 13

Currently, only the STL100-1 is available in SA.

Edit - The LTE models use the snapdragon s4 cpu
 
Last edited:
xcpointx said:
Alarm CLock - Create calendar entries labelled 'Alarm 1' 'Alarm 2' etc etc. This enables you to customise repeating days.

Keyboard - will show whenever you cursor is in an input field. If ever it doesn't show and you need it, a 2 fingerered swipe up will bring it up. But Im willing to bet your cursor isnt in a text field.

Hub - go to settings and choose which of those accounts you would like to be displayed in the hub.

Lock screen - is black. Or do you want the screen to be permanently lit up (consuming battery?)

Date/time - should have synced up with your service provider if you had a sim card in. It did for me.

ActiveSync - works perfectly for me. I'm using Outlook Exchange though. If you're having issues, I'd point more to Google's implementation than the device having issues with ActiveSync

PushMail - if your account supports push mail, and you enable the push mail checkbox in account setup you should get push mail.

Icloud - I don't know much about, but as it's an Apple product it is designed to work seamlessly with Apple devices. I don't think it has CalDav support (which is a standard for calendar sharing/updates). In other words I think Icloud is a proprietary platform that you can only use on Apple devices. Move your calendar to Outlook, Gmail, or some other cloud service..
Read more: http://macamour.com/blog/2011/11/06...cal-and-address-book-to-blackberry-handhelds/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3401387?start=0&tstart=0
Click to expand...

Thanks for helping out a BB newbie ;-)

- The Alarm Clock thing is a bit clunky. I would have thought that multiple alarms is a standard feature nowadays, but obviously not. Appworld has a variety of paid/free alarm apps for BB10, but it does feel somewhat wrong to download a 3rd party alarm clock.

- The keyboard issue is certainly a device issue. The keyboard did not show despite changing focus. The 2-fingered swipe is good to know, as I had this earlier on again.

- Lock Screen: I must say that the iOS lock of 4 digits rocks - save enough and super fast to unlock. Clunky on the BB

- ActiveSync works fine for GoogleApps account and I do believe there is some grace period for regular gmail accounts. It does sound that Google will only continue supporting ActiveSync on GoogleApps accounts though.

- AFAIK any mail service supporting IMAP IDLE / P-IMAP should work with push mail. I just read that iCloud uses a different P-IMAP implementation and this makes sense. iCloud does have CalDav and that works.

I only have a data-SIM in at the moment and can't really comment about voice quality. Or other features. Somewhat wary about how much bandwidth it will burn.
 
eish ..... after reading this im thinking twice of getting the device.
i had a few BB's, An iPhone, Galaxy Note, Lumia 920 and was eager to get the Z10 but doubting now.
 
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