First of all, let me apologise for the potato I used to take these photos. I was unable to find a better camera at the time I decided to post this.
Also, I will not be talking about actual specs, those can be found easily on the interwebs. I will also be selective in choosing features that matters to me more to discuss. You may say its bias, and IT IS. This is not about which phone is better than the other, its about which phone suits ME better. So it does not matter if one phone does something better that does not matter to me. If you are looking for a platform dissing article, you should move along.
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If you have noticed, in my title I did not use the word “VS” in my title. It is simply because I like both devices. The Nexus 4 my favourite Android device, while the Z10 is my favourite BlackBerry 10 device. “VS” is such a strong word. No matter this is still sort of a comparison between the 2 devices based on my personal preference.
Nexus 4 is running JellyBean 4.2.2.
BlackBerry Z10 is running 10.0.10.90.
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Design and Built
Both devices are similar in size in most aspects, with the Z10 having a shorter width. It is obvious that care have been given to the design of both devices.
The Nexus 4 has a front and back glass contruction, with the back glass having some sort of glitter effect, which looks pretty classy. Similar to what you would find on an iPhone 4/4S. Since the front of the device is all glass, it looks really great even if the screen is not turned on. The chrome sides adds a touch of elegance as well in my opinion. The sides are plastic though, but nonetheless feels great to hold in the hand.
The Z10 has that understated BlackBerry design. Sort of utilitarian. The main frame of the body uses a polycarbonate construction, which feels similar to the polycarbonate used on Nokia Lumia 800/900/920. The battery cover feels really great to hold in the hand. I am not joking, it feels GREAT. It is slightly rubbery, but not the cheap kind of rubber. It manages to be smooth, yet grippy at the same time. It feels similar to the material used on the back of the PlayBook, which is definitely a good thing, as it is pretty durable.
On a usability POV, I prefer the Z10 over the Nexus 4 though. The volume rocker and power button can be a little hard to press. Whereas on the Z10, the buttons are a pleasure to press. Yes, pleasure. The feedback of the button is good, requiring just a comfortable amount of strength to depress. Not so easy that you activate it by accident, and not so hard that you have to strain your finger muscles. Yes, its a minor thing, but over the course of the day, you need to press the button a lot of times. And being comfortable to press, is important to me.
Durability
To put it simply, if you drop your Nexus 4, be prepared for the worst. It can’t be helped since both front and back are glass. I have seen more cracked Nexus 4 than I would have liked.
The Z10 feels really solid, and so far it seems to be holding up pretty well. The back cover is plastic as well, so it should help absorb some shock. You have less chance of cracking your Z10 simply because there is one less piece of glass, and that glass is smaller in size compared to the front of the Nexus 4.
Bottom line, if you drop your device, be prepared for the worst no matter what device you have. Unless you are using a Nokia 3310.
Just be careful, is what I am trying to say. Or get a case.
Display
The display of the Z10 seems to have a warmer tone. You can see in the picture above. It has a yellowish tint to it, whereas the Nexus 4’s display is cooler.
Nonetheless, both are great displays with very good pixel density. Pictures will look sharp and text will look crisp on either device. I tend to prefer a whiter display though (like on the Nexus 4), but you are not always using you phone directly in front of a white piece of paper, so the warmer display of the Z10 is really no big deal for me.
Now onto the interesting bits…
Operating System
This will probably go on forever if I go in depth, so forgive me if I do not.
Android is a matured operating system. The misconceptions about its performance, sluggishness, lags, that you hear from people are long gone. With “Project Butter”, It is smooth, and it is fast. As you would expect from an operating system that has gone through many major revision, the feature-set is really solid. The stock UI looks pretty slick too. Then there are the customisability of Android, which gives freedom to advance users to customise their phones to their needs. Most should already know what Android devices can offer. If you haven’t noticed, I prefer stock Android over the other “skins (or whatever you call it)” that manufacturers use.
BlackBerry 10 is a baby. By that I meant that it is a brand new OS of course. Version 1.0 OS as I would call it. And for a version 1.0 OS, it certainly does not feel like one. This is where I feel the years of experience making mobile communication devices have helped BlackBerry tremendously. You can see a lot of good DNA in this device. Its like when Reed Richards and Susan Storm produces an offspring, you kinda expect the child to be pretty fantastic too. The OS offers lots of features, and settings brought over from previous generation devices, with some omission still of course, but for a V1.0 OS, it is pretty good. In fact I might even go as far as saying its better than Windows Phone 8 in terms of feature-set (I still love the tiles on WP though).
Frankly, if you put aside app ecosystem, and just compare OS, I might even go as far as to saying that it offers similar functions to the latest Apple and Google can offer. Sure, there are still minor quirks in the OS, minor bugs, and some ways that the navigation can be improved upon, but those are really the minor refinements to me. Not much of a deal breaker. I barely have any settings, functions, that I miss from iOS or Android. Frankly the settings I missed are from my old BlackBerry.
Things like profile customisation is one. The ability to set a particular type of notification to a certain sound (SMS, email, whatsapp, twitter, facebook, etc), vibrate pattern (for ie, setting sms to vibrate once, emails twice, whatsapp thrice, etc), and colour LED (for ie, green for whatsapp, blue for facebook and twitter, red for BBM and emails, etc).
It is a new OS. There are bound to be minor issues here and there that will be fixed soon (since BB was pretty prompt to released an update just recently fixing a good number of issues, I would expect the same momentum going forward).
Gestures
I think this really deserves its own sub-header, because the gestures are simply fantastic. So fantastic that after just 2 days with the Z10, and I picked up the Nexus 4, i keep trying to swipe up to return to the home screen. I keep swiping from left to right to go back to a previous page in my gmail, only to delete an email. Using a home and back button used to be a 2nd nature when using any other platforms, even BBOS. But now it has become a chore.
No matter what app I am in, I can just swipe up, and right in the same movement, and I can either “peek” at BlackBerry Hub (unified inbox/notifications), or go into it. On the Nexus 4 and iPhone 5, I have to strain and reposition my hand slightly in order to be able to pull down my notifications. I do this A LOT. Communication is my main use of my phone, so to allocate this task to a gesture that is uncomfortable for me to reach is just frustrating. Whereas on the Z10, my normal holding position of the phone allows me to access my Hub really easily, and painlessly. Just try it. Compare swiping from the bottom of the phone then to the right, with swiping down from the top of the screen. See which is more comfortable.
I love how you can turn on the display by just swiping up. No longer have to reach for the power button. If i have a notification come in, i can simply do a swipe up, to see where its from (email, sms, twitter, etc). If not important I can simply reverse the gesture, my finger never leaving the screen, back down again and it turns off. Quick and painless.
Though I would love it even more if there is a way to turn off the display without using the power/sleep button when you are on the homescreen. Like on my playbook, I don’t really remember ever having to use the power button. I can turn the display on and off without ever touching the power button.
Camera
Just a brief mention here. Photos taken by the Nexus 4 seems to be a bit warmer. Both frankly both are pretty capable. Not as great as iPhone 5, and Lumia 920 of course, but decent nonetheless. But I do prefer the UI of the camera on the Z10 over the one on the Nexus 4.
Browser
This is something that I use a lot on my phones. I browse and read news, articles, etc. With the state the ecosystem is in (which I shall elaborate below), a good browser is important. I tested a bunch of websites, cnn, cnet, cracked, espn, gdgt, and theverge. Both on the same WiFi network. Chrome broswer loaded a few of the mobile pages a split second before the Z10, but when it comes to the full webpage, the Z10 was faster in all of the site except gdgt for some reason (though it was just a split second behind). It has the highest html5test.com score of any mobile browser, it performs better in facebook’s Ringmark test, a test for compatibility of webapps. But does all these mean anything? probably not. You just need to know that the browser is FAST. On par or slightly better than its competitor considering that it support Adobe flash if you want it to. Yes, flash is dying, but its still nice to have the option to use it or not since its not completely dead yet.
Ecosystem
Inevitably, we come to this. App ecosystem. I wont beat around the bush. As it stands now, BlackBerry 10’s app ecosystem is massively behind its competitors. Perhaps even bordering on pathetic. Whatsapp, coming next week probably. Instagram, soon. Skype, soon. But there are others that still not here and no sight of coming anytime soon. Paypal, Ebay, Endomondo (which i use A LOT), the list goes on and on and on and on.
It will take time obviously but it should come eventually, since Z10 sales seems to be going well throughout the world, and it hasn’t even begin sales in US yet.
There are options to side load converted Android apps too, and goodereader.com offers a lot of them. If you really need to have an app, why not check first. Most of them work relatively well, like ebay, paypal, googlemaps, etc.
Conclusion
I would like to quote Brad Molen in his recent article about 30 days with the Z10.
"There are plenty of good qualities in BB10, but BlackBerry needs a hook — in other words, iOS and Android users won’t hop out of an ecosystem they’re comfortable with unless there’s a very clear reason to do so. The new and improved BlackBerry is the best first-edition OS I’ve ever used, but the true competitive advantages are few and far between: solid enterprise / BYOD support (areas in which iOS and Android are quickly catching up) and the BlackBerry Hub. BB10’s gesture-based UI and built-in Flash Player get honorable mentions, but I can’t see very many people making the jump on those features alone."
Which is pretty similar to my conclusion as well. Just that for me, the gesture base navigation, the UI, BlackBerry Hub, are the hooks for me. It is sufficient to make me want to give up the thriving ecosystem on the Nexus 4, live without whatsapp for a few weeks, live without Endomondo for a period of time. Its really that good. Especially for someone like me, who really value the time I can save and efficiency of having a unified inbox. Using gestures to navigate the OS just seems more efficient.
However I cannot say the same for others. This is something that you have to weigh yourself. Only you yourself know your needs best. I cannot make that decision for you. This is not a post about “this phone is better than the other phone”, its about “this phone suit my needs better than the other phone”, and “why i prefer this phone over the other”.
Peace.
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