Good bye Blackberry, hello Android!

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After almost 4 years of using my Blackberry Z30, it was finally time to retire it and get something new.
I decided to get another mid range device since my Z30 gave me such terrific service life. Let me tell you, shopping mid range is mind boggling because there are so many new and old names on the market to choose from. Flagships are much easier to shop in that regard.

After some very extensive research my weapon of choice is a factory unlocked Moto G5s Plus with 4GB ram and 64GB storage, which is also expandable.
So far here is what I like/dislike about it.

Dislikes:
- no LED notifications. Yes it has the on-screen notifications, but having LED notification with customizable colors on my Z30 was super useful.
- the rear camera sticks out like on an iPhone or some other devices. I like to carry my phones naked, so it looks like I'll have to get some sort of cover.
- the aluminum body is very slippery. I already had a few close calls with it. That cover looks better and better now.
- the battery is built in. My Z30 also has a built in battery and I never had to change it and it still holds the charge pretty much the same, but who knows how long this battery will last.

Likes:
- The phone is very well built for the price.
- the capacitive fingerprint scanner is fast and it also doubles as a gesture devise for the back and recent apps function. This way you can have more screen real estate. This feature can be turned off and the regular, on-screen buttons will be visible.
- it has expandable memory.
- works with GSM and CDMA networks.
- The price.
- It will get updated to Android 8.
- The battery life is very good, not quite my Z30 good, but better than most today's phones. My wife has an iPhone 7 Plus and we were out all day long, with my phone being used for navigation, looking stuff up online or using google maps, since her data was almost used up and turned off. At the end of the day, her iPhone had about 25% battery life left, while mine was about 45% and did quite a bit more work.
- it offers pretty much stock Android experience, which is something I was looking for. It has some very specific Moto apps, that are actually useful, like that capacitive button navigation I mentioned earlier. Everything else is stock Android.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting this device to be this good, considering that it costs about a third of the current flagships. I'm hoping that it will serve me well for 3-4 years as well.
 
Should be easy to root and install Light Flow.

You have a notification LED in your speaker. Moto disables them, for whatever reason, from the factory.
 
Camera may stick out but it's a seriously *good* camera within price range that the Moto G5s+ competes in.
 
If it has the always on screen notifications like the Samsungs, you'll completely forget about that LED notification light. I turned mine off.
 
Don’t the latest Blackberrys run a re-skinned version of android? That’s a route they should’ve gone a long time ago simply for app availability.
 
Originally Posted By: rooflessVW
Should be easy to root and install Light Flow.

You have a notification LED in your speaker. Moto disables them, for whatever reason, from the factory.


Cool, thanks, I may try it out.


Originally Posted By: ARB1977
Had a Galaxy S5 for almost five years. Just picked up a iPhone 8+.


The blackberry is still working fine as a device, but since the company dropped all support for their operating system called BB10 and I could only side load android apps for Android 4.4 I think. Shame because their BB10 system was fantastic IMO.

Originally Posted By: WhyMe
i have own a huawei honor 5 for a couple of years. has fingerprint and other good stuff for back then $200. never had a problem with it and loaded android 7.0 when it came out and will do 8.0 soon

they are a good value

http://consumer.huawei.com/en/support/phones/


Yes, I looked into Hauwei models and they look pretty good. Maybe next time.

Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
Camera may stick out but it's a seriously *good* camera within price range that the Moto G5s+ competes in.


I'm not too hot for mobile cameras, they all suck IMO and all the reviews should focus on which ones suck less. They are fine for some spontaneous things and on-screen consumption, but I just shake my head when people try to use them to memorize more notable events in their lives.

Originally Posted By: dishdude
If it has the always on screen notifications like the Samsungs, you'll completely forget about that LED notification light. I turned mine off.


It's not an always on screen notification. To save battery life, it only turns on when something new comes in when when you move the phone.

Originally Posted By: Donald
I got a Blackberry from work. It was pretty good but I like my Nexus 6 better.

Originally Posted By: Fsharp
Don’t the latest Blackberrys run a re-skinned version of android? That’s a route they should’ve gone a long time ago simply for app availability.

Originally Posted By: ZZman
Blackberry? That is old school!


This one had its own operating system called BB10 with Android runtime, meaning android apps could be installed. The system IMO was the best blend between Android's flexibility and iOS stability. Problem was that by the time Blackberry woke up and realized their old days of glory are gone and the market has moved to the touch screen phones, it was too late. Despite them producing a great device an even greater operating system, nobody took notice.

I only got this phone because one of my buddies family member was working for Blackberry at the time Blackberry had something like a billion dollars worth of inventory sitting in the warehouse somewhere and they needed to unload all of that. So all their employees could sell these devices to anybody they knew at a significant discount.
 
Originally Posted By: ZZman
Blackberry? That is old school!


And tough, and secure, and an actual keyboard, and they don't get stolen
smile.gif
 
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