BlackBerry Passport
BlackBerry Passport is a smartphone developed by BlackBerry Limited. Officially released on October 24, 2014, the Passport is inspired by its namesake and incorporates features designed to make the device attractive to enterprise users, such as a unique square-shaped display measuring 4.5 inches diagonally, a compact physical keyboard with touchpad gestures, and the latest release of the company’s BlackBerry 10 operating system.
It’s pretty decent.
Contemporary reviews: crackberry.com, techradar.com, trustedreviews.com
SQW100-3
My personal BlackBerry timeline goes something like this:
iPhone 4s -> Passport SQW100-3 -> iPhone 7 Plus -> iPhone XS Max -> Passport SQW100-3 -> unihertz Titan -> Passport SQW100-3 -> Key2 -> Passport SQW100-3
It was already two years old the first time I bought it. Well on its way to sliding out of popular consciousness. The thing didn’t sell very well, which was great. Plenty of new old stock still laying around for reasonable prices. My first unit was brand new, the second was a refurb. Both ended up suffering keyboard failures, I suspect owing to excess humidity. These things aren’t water proof, or even water resistant. I finally gave up and bought an iPhone.
That may have been hasty.
The Passport is more functional now (mid 2020) than when I surrendered my original device back in late 2016. Some few Android applications have actually relaxed their OS version requirements. Which is nice, since the ones I really need mostly overlap with that list.
I missed the physical keyboard and the finegrained, non-nerfed system configuration.
This handset always reminded me of the Palm Treo. Maybe more like the Palm Treo done right, with the benefit of ten more years of technological development, and eliding the J2ME apps that worked only well enough to really piss you off when they inevitably crashed. That is to say, stable, functional, and useful. A divergent path abandoned by the industry in the aftermath of the iPhone’s overwhelming success.
It’s not perfect, and a lot of modern things just don’t work. But for now, it’s enough.
Note: The AT&T model, SQW100-3, is the only one that supports Qi charging. Which works, but is a little buggy.
quirks
doc
software
bar: appworld update, bbtube, bittorque, bpod, browsie, gngeo, mupen64plus, paperbird, ppsspp, retroarch
apk: andftp, audible, appops, cdisplay, deliveries, fennec, k-9, md.emu, netflix, newpipe, smart audiobook player, transmission, vlc, wifi analyzer,
see also: adapted android applications
dev
android prototype, android prototype (video), berrymain, hacks, qtwebkit 5.6, qt 5 binaries for bb10
status
2021.04.15 Update: Passport calling is being forcibly phased out by carriers (including carriers who used to sell the device), so, no going back.