True to form, the BlackBerry Z30 is a late entry to the large smartphone arena by the company formerly known as RIM.
The BlackBerry Z30 has a 5-inch, 1280-by-768 resolution display, compared to the 4.2-inch display on the company’s existing Z10. Processing power also gets a boost, with a 1.7 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Pro under the hood.
Thankfully, the larger chassis makes room for a bigger battery, addressing one of the major gripes with the Z10. BlackBerry says the Z30’s 2,880 mAh battery will last up to 25 hours in a “mixed usage scenario.” On the downside, the Z30’s battery is non-removable.
Other specs are similar to those of the Z10: 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front camera, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of built-in storage and a micro SD card slot. The BlackBerry Z30 measures 0.37 inches thick, and weighs about 0.37 pounds.
As for software, the Z30 will ship with the BlackBerry 10.2 operating system. The updated software includes a “Priority Hub” that sorts your messages by importance, the ability to preview and respond to BBM messages from any app, and “BlackBerry Natural Sound” technology that improves the quality of voice and video chat. KnowYourMobile has a good summary of all the changes in BlackBerry 10.2. (Some of them seem essential, like a new quick settings menu and the ability to set multiple alarms in the Clock app.)
The Z30 probably won’t turn BlackBerry’s smartphone efforts around. The company is trying to find a buyer or partner, leaving the late-coming BlackBerry platform in a state of limbo (or perhaps decay). But until BlackBerry’s future gets ironed out, all the company can do is keep releasing phones, and not just ones that seem like relics from the physical keyboard era. At least the Z30 looks the part.