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2The Bold Face of the BlackBerry Q10
If this smartphone looks familiar to you, that’s because it closely resembles its predecessor, the BlackBerry Bold 9900. The biggest differences are that the Q10’s screen is larger, and the top row of the keyboard—which held the BlackBerry menu button, the touch-pad and the go-back button—is gone. Those functions are now handled by the touch-screen.
3Powering Up the Summary Screen
4Here’s the BlackBerry Q10 Home Screen
5BlackBerry Hub Is Always Near
The Hub is a central feature of all BlackBerry 10 smartphones. To reach the Hub, you simply slide the screen to one side. (Here it’s the home screen, but it can be any screen.) It’s a unified messaging center that can collect everything from email to social networking in a single location. You can choose what goes into the Hub.
6Putting the Black Into BlackBerry
The Q10 is designed to present the screens of many apps, in this case the calendar, with black backgrounds as a power-saving measure. BlackBerry lists the standby time of the Q10 as more than 350 hours, and the talk time as 13.5 hours on 3G. Using the phone on LTE sucks up more power. Still, the Q10 easily lasted all day with power to spare.
7Rear View of the BlackBerry Q10
The back side of the Q10 is a soft-textured material that’s easy to hold. In the center of the back is a silver BlackBerry logo that’s also the near-field communication (NFC) antenna. The stainless steel bar above that is slightly raised to protect the NFC antenna from coming into contact with potentially damaging surfaces. In the upper corner is the 8 megapixel camera and an LED flash.
8Speaker, Microphone Ports Are at the Bottom
9A Micro-USB Port Is on Left Side of the phone
10Familiar Power, Wake-Up Buttons Are on Top
11A Multifunction Control Is on the Right
The control on the right side of the Q10 is primarily a volume control. What it controls depends on what you’re doing. It can control the ringing volume or the volume of program material. This control can also work as a fast-forward-rewind control. The smaller button in the center has a variety of uses ranging from a mute button to a hold button for the phone.
12Here Is the Typical Removable Back Panel
As is the case in all BlackBerry smartphones, the back is removable. You can replace the battery with a fresh one, and you can pull the battery for a quick reboot. You can also see the SIM card here. The spot to the right with a blue arrow is the SD card slot. The two copper buttons above the SIM are connectors for the NFC antenna.
13Taking a Deeper Look Inside
14The BlackBerry Bold 9900’s DNA Is Apparent in the Q10
The resemblance between the BlackBerry Q10 on the left and the Bold 9900 on the right is clear. The Q10 has a larger screen, and you can see where that top row of buttons has been removed. But it’s clear that existing BlackBerry users will feel right at home.