BlackBerry Passport deals and reviews

With one of the most uniques designs for a phone in recent times, ths BlackBerry Passport has polarized both public and critical opinion. Fans of classic BlackBerry devices will probably love the physical keyboard, and enterprise users whose workplace uses BlackBerry Enterprise Suite will enjoy the feature it brings to the table. Most reviewers have however struggled to come up with compelling arguments for the average customer to get a Passport though. Most people have arguably moved on from physical keyboards, and businesses have become more Apple and Android compatible compared to a few years ago when BlackBerry was a more powerful name. The square screen has a reasonably high resolution at 1440x1440, but if you like watching videos, it's simply the wrong shape. Although the Passport supports installing Android apps, you can't access the Google Play store, which means getting apps is that little bit harder. Overall, some of the unique features may be enough to sway some business-oriented users, but for the majority, it's a much harder sell.

What the critics say (scores are out of 100)

100	S21 The BlackBerry Passport is different, but in a good way. It's big, heavy and strange to behold, but it offers business users everything they need - an incredibly powerful keyboard, a great OS with BlackBerry and Android apps, a beautiful square screen, and powerful performance to match. Read full review
100	Digital Versus | Romain Thuret The Passport was a successful gamble for BlackBerry. It may not be without fault and its shape is definitely not for everyone, but it provides an amazing experience for the niche it's targeting. The Passport just may be the worthy successor to the Bold 2.0 that we've been waiting for. Read full review
90	Know Your Mobile | Richard Goodwin The Passport is a weird looking piece of tech, yes, and the keyboard does take a bit of getting used to, but, like all new ideas, once you've accustomed yourself to its ways you feel right at home banging out emails, editing documents and tweeting. Good work, BlackBerry! Read full review
80	The Mobile Indian | Anil Satapathy Recommended only for BlackBerry Boys and executives who want to stay connected 24X7 Read full review
80	IT PRO | Adam Shepherd, Khidr Suleman, Rene Millman The Passport provides all the functionality you'd expect from a high-end device. It's got one of the best reputations for security in the business, and it's one of the few manufacturers still offering a physical keyboard. It may not be enough to pull BlackBerry's hardware business back from the brink, but it's a great device that's likely to be a hit with fans. Read full review
78	Mobile Syrup | Daniel Bader The BlackBerry Passport gets most parts of the hardware right. Unfortunately, by bundling the Amazon Appstore, BlackBerry exposes its uneasy relationship between business and consumer markets, appeasing none. Read full review
75	The Next Web | Ben Woods In many ways, the Passport is a great smartphone, but its features, design choices and out-of-the-box services mean it'll only ever really appeal to a small section of the market. Read full review
75	What Mobile | Saqib Shah If you're a business user, BlackBerry has just delivered the phone of your dreams in terms of functionality. For everyone else, the BlackBerry Passport is far too impractical and productivity-oriented to use on a daily basis. Read full review
75	phoneArena | John V. Sorry Passport, you tried desperately to beat out these all-touch smartphones, but at the end of the day, your poorly laid out keyboard and antiquated software experience validates you're just not ready for the big leagues. Read full review
70	Gadgets Now | Anupam Saxena The BlackBerry Passport is the most powerful phone the company has ever made. The phone boasts of solid build quality, an excellent display and a decent camera in addition to industry leading communication and security features. However, it's not without flaws. The keyboard takes a lot of time to get used to and still doesn't offer a fluid and fast typing experience. The phone is too wide for comfort and feels awkward to use. Read full review
70	Digital Trends | Ted Kritsonis BlackBerry's Passport is a fantastic phone for spreadsheets and work thanks to its keyboard and square screen, but can't compete when it comes to media and apps. Read full review
70	Recombu | Alex Todd We want to like the offering made by the Passport, BlackBerry just hasn't made that easy to do. Read full review
70	TechnoBuffalo | Todd Haselton It's not perfect, but it's far better than BlackBerry's last crop of phones. The camera is pretty solid, the battery life is great, and the screen is sharp. If you want a BlackBerry, the BlackBerry Passport is a solid choice. Read full review
70	Mobile Choice I really fail to see how BlackBerry can shift enough units to turn a profit. I wanted to like the BlackBerry Passport. I really wanted to prove the naysayers wrong and discover a phone which is successfully different, but beneath the bold new suit live the same old problems. Read full review
65	Register Hardware | Andrew Orlowski BlackBerry returns with an highly unusual design that's uncompromisingly aimed at two groups: enterprise users and those looking for powerful complementary "second phone". Indeed, its assertive shape and bulk will repel all but the determined. Read full review
60	Australian PC World | Tony Ibrahim The BlackBerry Passport is the Fort Knox of smartphones. Only those with for-their-eyes-only information will value its proficient security, though we'd recommend the BlackBerry Z30 in those cases. The Passport does few things well, but it is let down by doing too many things not well enough. Read full review
60	Brighthand | Grant Hatchimonji BlackBerry's intentions with the Passport were good. It wanted to create something groundbreaking in spite of multiple inherent risks, and that's an approach that is rarely seen in the world of smartphones today. Read full review
60	V3 | Alastair Stevenson For existing BlackBerry customers with a BES, the Passport is the most advanced and interesting BlackBerry handset currently available. However, with most of its new features requiring BES or having parallels in alternative platforms, there's little here to entice non-BlackBerry business customers. Read full review
60	ITProPortal | Sandra Vogel BlackBerry has given itself an uphill struggle in producing a handset which so squarely bucks the handset trend, and in deciding to support Android but not the full Play store. BlackBerry Blend may be enough to sway some business users, but the pull for non-professionals is more difficult to understand. Read full review
60	The Gadget Show Link to video Read full review
60	Trusted Reviews | Michael Sawh The BlackBerry Passport tries to be different but doesn't quite get it right. As a result this is not the smartphone serious business professionals should consider. There are far too many problems to recommend the Passport. Read full review
50	LAPTOP | Mark Spoonauer The BlackBerry Passport fits more content on its wide screen than the competition and boasts awesome battery life, but the design is just too clunky and awkward. Read full review

Compare BlackBerry Passport specs side-by-side with other phones COMPARE SPECS

Dimensions & Form	Form factor: Touchscreen bar with physical keyboard Dimensions 128 x 90.3 x 9.3 mm (5.04 x 3.56 x 0.37 in) Weight: 196 g (6.91 oz)
Screen	Size: 4.5 inches diagonal Resolution: 1440 x 1440 pixels Screen Density: 453 ppi Screen-to-Body Ratio: 56.5 % Display Type: IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen
Runs
Performance	Chipset: Qualcomm MSM8974AA Snapdragon 801 CPU: Quad-core 2.26 GHz Krait 400 GPU: Adreno 330 RAM: 3GB
Camera	Main Camera: 13 megapixels with Optical image stabilization (OIS), LED flash, 1080p video recording at 60fps Secondary Camera: 2 megapixels with 720p video recording
Storage	Built-in Storage: 32GB Expandable Storage: Micro SD
Battery & Charging	Capacity: 3450 mAh Removable Battery: No Wireless Charging: No Quick Charge: None
SIM standard	Micro SIM Compare SIM Only deals
Water & Dust Resistance	Not Available
Fingerprint Reader	None
References & More info	Official website GSMArena specs page

Photos taken with the BlackBerry Passport

We've used Flickr to find a selection of pictures taken by the BlackBerry Passport camera. Here is a selection of photos taken by users from around the world so you can see what kind of picture quality you can expect from real-world use of the BlackBerry Passport.

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All images shown are used under the rights and terms specified by the Creative Commons.