Hands on: BlackBerry 10 review

BlackBerry 10 is still heavily under development and still quite some way from being a finished product, but we've had some hands on time with an early release to get a feel for some of the new features.
Delayed until early 2013, the first BB10 devices should land in January – although we're yet to see final devices running the new OS.

Although the demos at BlackBerry Jam are being done on an updated version of the BlackBerry Dev Alpha device that RIM is handing out to developers, we saw the near-final version of BlackBerry 10 running on early versions of the upcoming BlackBerry 10 devices in London recently (although we can't share more details about those handsets than we've already told you).

BB10 sees the implementation of a whole new user interface, with RIM doing away with the familiar BlackBerry system we're all used to, in favour of something which resembles the likes of Android and iOS, although with its own unique features.


With BlackBerry 10, RIM has merged homescreens, widgets, app lists and a unified inbox into one slick interface, offering up an easy-to-navigate user experience.

Lock screen
The lock screen shows notifications for alarms and unread messages on the left plus your upcoming meetings as well as the date and time, with a button to launch the camera straight from the lock screen to grab a quick snap.

You unlock the phone by sliding your thumb up the screen and from there slide from anywhere on screen. This means that rather than needing to start at the bottom, the screen starts to draw in around where you slide so if you just want a quick peek at the information in one area of the screen, you can just drag to show it and then let go (more on that in 'Peek' mode below).


Peek mode and BlackBerry Hub
Wherever you are, you can drag up on the screen to see notifications down the left-hand side of the screen. Pull up and slide across and you see the details of the new messages (from the unified inbox, so you get email, texts, BBM and social network updates or other alerts all together).

Cascades
Then there's Cascades, a new navigation system cooked up by RIM especially for BB10, allowing for quick multitasking from within applications.


The example we've seen is in the messaging app - open an email it will display full screen, but drag your finger from left to right and the message will slide with you, revealing the inbox below.

BlackBerry assured us that is smooth experience would still be present in the final product, thanks to the clever integration of the HTML 5 system, which optimises the performance of the software. We certainly hope they're right.

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