VS
There was a time when Blackberry (formerly RIM) all but had the smartphone market
to themselves, but in the last few years they’ve been having a hard
time. Apple burst on to the scene, closely followed by Android and then
Windows Phone, all of them bringing fresh ideas and a desire for
dominance which quickly ate into Blackberry’s market share and left them
by the wayside.
Blackberry hasn’t given up though and
the Blackberry Z10 is testament to that. It’s almost certainly their
best phone yet, running a brand new operating system (Blackberry 10) and
setting its sights on both business
and leisure users. It’s undoubtedly a good handset, but we’re pitting
it against the iPhone 5 – the most popular smartphone on the planet, so
it’s going to take a lot for Blackberry to take the win. Have they done
enough not just to become relevant again but to topple a giant?
Apple iPhone 5 v Blackberry Z10 – Build quality and durability
The iPhone 5 is undoubtedly one of the
best- and most premium- looking smartphones on the planet. Its shiny
metal body oozes quality and at only 7.6 mm thick it’s remarkably slim.
It does have quite large black bars above and below the screen which
don’t look great and having a physical button on the front of the phone
not only spoils the lines but seems almost quaint in this day and age.
Despite all that, with most phones still sporting the non-descript
plastic rectangle look the iPhone 5 is certainly distinctive and good
looking in comparison.
Unfortunately the Blackberry Z10 falls
firmly into the aforementioned plastic rectangle camp. The all-black
chassis and metallic keys leaves it looking somewhat classy if a little
bland and does nothing to distance it from the business phone image that
Blackberry has developed. That may put leisure users off and in any
case its plastic body is nothing on the iPhone 5’s metal.
The durability of the Blackberry Z10 is
also a little suspect in comparison to the iPhone 5, as it has a fairly
flimsy and loose back cover, though at least being made of plastic it
would probably cheaper to repair if any damage did befall it.
Apple iPhone 5 v Blackberry Z10 – Which has the better display?
The iPhone 5 bumped the iPhone screen
size up to 4 inches, with a 640 x 1136 IPS LCD display rocking a 326 ppi
Retina Display. While some other phones have since topped the iPhone’s
pixel density it still has better contrast than most other phones on the
market, with deep blacks and blinding whites. Apple have also set the
iPhone 5 apart by giving it a true 16:9 wide-screen display, which means
that it’s quite long but narrower than most handsets. It’s a slightly
odd look and makes it great for watching movies on but we’re not
entirely convinced it helps any the rest of the time.
The Blackberry Z10 is both bigger and
higher resolution than the iPhone 5, with a 4.2 inch 768 x 1280 screen
and an impressive 355 pixels per inch. It’s a great screen all in all,
though it doesn’t have quite as good contrast as the iPhone 5 so we’ll
call this one a draw.
Apple iPhone 5 v Blackberry Z10 – Which is the most powerful?
The iPhone 5 is powered by a dual-core
1.2 GHz Apple A6 processor with 1 GB of RAM, which might not sound like
much but its real world performance is way beyond what you’d expect from
those specs, easily matching quad-core Android phones.
The Blackberry Z10 is slightly more
powerful in theory as it has a 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor
and 2 GB of RAM. We’ve seen the Snapdragon S4 in other handsets, for
example the Nokia Lumia 920, and it performs as well here as it did
there. But it still doesn’t quite seem to match the performance of the
iPhone 5.
Apple iPhone 5 v Blackberry Z10 – Which has the better camera?
The iPhone 5 thoroughly impressed us
with its 8 megapixel camera. It does a great job of stills, better in
fact than many other 8 megapixel phone cameras. On top of that it can
also manage full 1080p video at 30fps.
The Blackberry Z10 stacks up pretty well
though. It matches the iPhone 5 with an 8 megapixel camera of its own,
which produces similarly good results- particularly in daylight, and
like the iPhone 5 it can also shoot 1080p video at 30fps. It doesn’t
quite top the iPhone 5 but it certainly matches it.
Apple iPhone 5 v Blackberry Z10 – Battery life, memory and connectivity
The iPhone 5 only has a 1440 mAh
battery, which is disappointingly small, particularly when you consider
that the Blackberry Z10 has an 1800 mAh one. That extra size makes all
the difference too, giving you up to 10 hours talk time and 312 hours
standby time on the Blackberry Z10 compared to just 8 hours talk time
and 225 hours standby time on the iPhone 5. We’d actually love to see
bigger batteries in both of them, but of the two the Blackberry Z10
undoubtedly has the most juice.
For on-board memory the iPhone 5 comes
with either 16, 32 or 64 GB, but with no micro SD card slot that’s all
you get. The Blackberry Z10 comes with just 16 GB of memory but it also
supports micro SD cards of up to 64 GB, which potentially gives you more
total storage- and that’s before you consider the fact that you can
easily swap out micro SD cards to give yourself near infinite storage.
In terms of connectivity options the
iPhone 5 has 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi and potentially 4G (though
currently only if you buy it on EE). The Blackberry Z10 has exactly the
same options but with the addition of NFC, making it a win for the
Blackberry.
Conclusion
The Blackberry Z10 definitely puts in a
solid performance, leading to a surprisingly close contest. It matches
the iPhone 5 for display and camera and even tops it for battery life,
memory and connectivity. But with the iPhone 5 out-powering it and
delivering far better build quality and durability it’s enough for the
iPhone 5 to be crowned the victor- just.
Culled from 3G
That has got to be the most subjective statement I have ever seen. Not even a wiff of fact to back it up. Laggy screen (not on my BB)? Poor App performance (nope). Hmmm, very suspect.
Moreover, you forgot to mention that BB10 is a REALTIME operating system that can actually perform more than one function at a time, where as the iPhone is limited to a single process.
You failed to mention the items that no other phone can match like Balance profiles, communication hub and an open eco-system (BB world, or ANY Android store you like)instead of the walled garden that will leave you tied to Apple whimsy.
How about Prices? You didn’t mention that the Z10 is hundreds cheaper and has a stellar Windows RDP client and office package so you can access the files that you forgot on your office computer.
If bloggers would quit looking at half the story (simply because they don’t bother researching the phone!!!) they would realize the BB10 platform is stellar, especially now with near native Andriod performance. I’m not so sure this news can be trusted…
Built quality of Iphone looks good but over a period looks deteriorate else you use and phone protector.
I have both the phones and configured for my two different business. Iphone 5 is laggy after 5 months of use whereas BB Z10 is not and Z10 is more smart as compared to Iphone 5.
Multi task and Typing is far superior in BB Z10 over productivity is better in BB Z10.
BB Z10 battery last about a day but Iphone 5 I need to carry charger with me.