Welcome to the ceremonial unboxing of BlackBerry’s newest smartphone to hit the local market (and the latest lab rat at Gadgets HQ): the BlackBerry Q5!
Upon lifting the lid of the black and red box, we are immediately greeted by the Q5, but before we examine the device itself, let’s check out the contents of the box.
In the Box
Underneath the Q5 is a cardboard flap that when lifted, reveals the other contents of the package.
The package comes with a charging adapter, a three-pronged travel adapter and a USB cable.
Also included in the package are earphones that feature a 3.5mm audio plug, an inline mic/remote, and a shirt clip.
Apart from the accessories, the box also contains a few product papers (in different languages) and a start-up guide.
The BlackBerry Q5 in the Flesh!
Upon picking up the Q5, you’ll notice right away that it’s extremely lightweight, primarily because the build is mostly plastic. It’s about the same physical dimensions as the Q10, except its edges are less rounded, giving it a more rectangular shape than its predecessor. Its rounded back makes it thicker than the Z10, but it certainly is nothing that your pocket can’t handle. The Q5 has just the right width to make it comfortable to hold and operate with one hand.
The Q5 runs the 10.1 version of the new BlackBerry 10 OS. Much of the BB10 features require some swiping action (like the Hub), which of course makes the Q5 both a touchscreen device and a QWERTY phone—just like the Q10.
True enough, right upfront, we see the 3.1-inch, 720×720-pixel, touch-sensitive IPS LCD display. Just above it are the earpiece and the 2.0MP front-facing camera. Directly beneath the screen is the company’s brand and logo.
The bottom half of the Q5’s front face is the QWERTY keyboard—BlackBerry’s way of delivering a tactile experience when texting, typing emails or chatting over BBM. Unlike the Q10, the Q5’s keys are spaced out, like the BlackBerry Curve 9220 and 9320.
At the bottom of the device, we see the loudspeakers.
At the apex of the Q5 is the power/lock button, and near the edge of the top plate is the 3.5mm port where you can plug in your headsets.
Turning the device to its left side reveals an uncovered microUSB port for charging and file transfer, right next to a little flap that hides the microSD and microSIM slots.
The right flank, meanwhile, is home to the volume controls. Between the two volume triggers is a button that, when held for about two seconds, launches Voice Control.
At the center of the backplate is a metallic BlackBerry logo. We can also see the 5MP main camera located at the upper left corner.
A closer examination of the rear camera reveals that there’s a LED flash next to it—a handy addition, used to keep photos nice and bright in low-light situations.
The Q5 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chip, supports 4G LTE, is NFC-capable, can shoot 1080p videos, and has up to 12.5 hours of talk time, and we’ll see how these features fare in a couple of weeks.
That’s about it for now, folks. Keep checking back for updates!
