NEW DELHI: The last two famous smartphones created by the Canadian company inherited the QWERTY keyboard that was in vogue years ago. But the “Passport” model not only has a physical keyboard, but its aspect is also odd, being square, big and heavy. The OnePlus One, on the other hand, is a more elegant device, with a casing made of an anti-fingerprint material. But more about these phones you’ll read here.
The BlackBerry Passport has the size (128×90.3x 9.3mm) of a passport, therefore its name! It has a bizarre look – three rows of keys, a 4.5inches square IPS LCD screen supporting 1440×1440 pixels at 453ppi, a plastic back with a metallic frame, which makes it an interestingly frustrating phone. The wide screen is excellent for viewing text documents and spreadsheets and this is why this phone is recommended for business people. The Passport isn’t a weak phone either, being packed with 3GB of RAM, supported by a Qualcomm MSM8974AA Snapdragon 801 chipset along with a quad-core 2.26 GHz Krait 400 processor and Adreno 330 graphics.
Its internal memory is pretty generous at 32GB, but the capacity can be expanded up to 128GB with a microSD card. To take photos you’ll use the 13MP rear camera with optical image stabilization, which can record 1080p video at 60 fps. But front camera, on the other hand, it’s too advanced, but if you don’t intend to take selfies, then 2MP is a proper resolution for video calling. The battery is 3,450mAh, non-removable, and according to GSMArena, it lasts 23 hours when making calls over 3G. The device runs on BlackBerry 10.3 OS, and the BlackBerry App World doesn’t offer too many applications for this operating system, and if you want to have access to Netflix, you’ll need to download the APK file from another source. The Passport has problems with the camera, as the pictures don’t show all the time in the camera roll. If you like voice assistants, then BlackBerry Assistant will try to understand your voice and take your commands.
The OnePlus One is a beauty, a phablet measuring 152.9×75.9×8.9 mm and which is equipped with a 5.5inches LTPS LCD screen that supports 1080×1920 pixels at 401 ppi. Its small price (299 dollars) might make you believe this is just another cheap mid-range phone with a boring design. It’s not the case for the OnePlus One, which has an ergonomic design, featuring a curve to the back for easily grasp. The power button was placed to the right side and the volume rocker is on the left, and regarding the shell material, the silk white model is made of plastic but has a smooth matted feel, while the sandstone black model copies the feel of fine sandpaper.
Under the beautiful shell was placed a non-removable 3100mAh battery and under it runs a quad-core 2.5GHz Krait 400 processor that is supported by a Qualcomm MSM8974AC Snapdragon 801 chipset, but the graphics are the same. The processor is backed by 3GB of RAM and the storage options are 16 and 64GB, without the possibility to expand their capacities. The rear camera is 13MP (Sony Exmor sensor) and has six lenses, dual-LED flash and f/2.0 aperture. The other camera is 5MP and delivers great selfies. The phone runs on Android v4.4.2 KitKat (upgradable to v4.4.4 KitKat) with CyanogenMod 11S on top of it.