Blackberry Z10 first impressions.

So I managed to get a Z10 for testing purposes and thought I'd share my opinions in my first day of use.

First, my applications ported to Blackberry with only small changes. I removed my platform specific plugins (leaderboards, in app purchases, etc) and it ran right away. Unity has got this down pat!

Initially, I felt the device was underpowered. The UI is a little choppy, even stock, with nothing installed. That immediately made me feel like the Z10 wasn't in the same league as Android or iOS. That said, the game performance was pretty good! The processor is quite fast and capable. So I'm not sure what's up with their UI...

Also, the UI feels dated. The menu lists all have their own icons and it looks strange - hard to describe. Android's is a slick UI and iOS has icons, but this has both. The icons have a basic style, but they vary widely, unlike the new push for more uniform looks. There are no categories to break them up, and they're not even sorted alphabetically.

The ease that you can build to Blackberry is a major strength, but the lack of plugins and no strong contender for game-related things like leaderboards, it feels a little behind the wave.

However - none of that really matters if users in the Blackberry community actually support apps. If they do, I believe developers will flock to the platform. So let's hope they're more like iOS and less like Android.