A Close-up Of The BlackBerry Classic

BlackBerry’s Passport smartphone just got launched this year but they have already started rolling out the BlackBerry Classic, which has a striking resemblance to the BlackBerry Bold 9900. BlackBerry actually compared it to the 9900 when launching it.

Does this similarity make it better? Well the 9900  seemed like an upgrade in terms of both software, with some calling it the greatest step BlackBerry ever took in terms of  creating a smartphone people were actually excited to own.

The specifications of the BlackBerry Classic that make it better than the 9900 are:

OS: The Classic comes with the newest BlackBerry 10 OS compared to the 9900’s 7.1 OS, making it faster and more powerful than the 9900. The new OS will also make it 3 times faster than the 9900 when it comes to browsing speed. The BlackBerry 10 OS also allows BlackBerry users to download both Android and BlackBerry apps, something that wasn’t possible on the BlackBerry 7.1 platform.

Screen: The BlackBerry Classic has a 3.5″ square screen, which is 60% bigger than the 9900 which has a 2.8″ square one.

Battery Life:  BlackBerry promises up to 50% more battery life on the Classic’s 2515 mAh battery than the Bold, setting 22 hours as the maximum battery life of their latest flagship phone. We know this 22 hours is not the exact number that the phone would run for with continuous usage, especially when the mobile data feature is turned on, or when using Wi-Fi.

Storage: The Classic will hold up to 144GB worth of files i.e 16GB internal memory plus support for up to 128GB MicroSD card, while the Bld 9900 only holds up to 40GB, through 8GB of internal memory and support for a 32GB MicroSD card.

The other features of the new BlackBerry Classic are that it has a QWERTY keyboard, it runs on a dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It also has an 8MP rear and 2MP front camera, and is 4G/LTE enabled.

Conclusion

The BlackBerry Classic is a better phone within its family in the BlackBerry circles. When compared to other phones currently available on the Android and iOS platforms, it may fall below comparisons. So for comparison’s sake we kept the differences strictly with the Bold 9900 which BlackBerry itself says to have upgraded from.

We thought with the current advancements being made by other brands, BlackBerry would also follow suit and make their product seem more ‘fun‘, but clearly they intend to keep their target market the average business person who has no time for games but needs their emails.

It also doesn’t come cheap at $499 on the BlackBerry Online Shop. That is almost ZMW 3,141.20, according to rates from xe.com. Erm, BlackBerry, who came up with that tag? Anyway, it will sell to clients who like speed but don’t exactly want a  ‘playful’ phone.

Image Credits: BlackBerry