The all new Blackberry Passport

(Make sure you check out the video review at the end)

Blackberry owned the South African market for a while until iPhone and Samsung's wildly popular smartphones hit our shores. While its star might be waning, it does still rank in the top 2 within the retail industry (that's the straight phone purchase market). It's not anywhere near as popular as it was with the contract buyers but Blackberry is making a play that will change that...well they hope.

I give to you the all new, rather eye catching, Blackberry Passport. 

It’s unique design and productive features will have you wondering if you should consider changing phones. Soon.

It’s built for productivity and Blackberry have included many features which will ensure that that sentiment is carried through its operating system and physical features. We’ll touch on just a few:

The passport, which got it’s name due to being the actual size of a passport, and is also quite pleasant to hold, brings back the tactile element of a physical keyboard which in itself is something quite refreshing and fun to use.

But they’ve gone one better, by making the keyboard a track sensitive trackpad. 

So I’m typing, whoops, I’ve made a mistake, I just simply swipe back on the keyboard and voila, the word’s erased. Shortcut words…simply swipe up under the word you want to use. Want more characters, swipe down in the middle. It’s a very cool feature!

The operating system is simple and not as involved as Android and comes with it’s own set of built in apps including Blackberry App World and Amazon Apps.

 

You see the reason for this is due to the fact that Blackberry offers a sparse array of apps compared to those of Android or Apple however they’ve tried to increase this number by incorporating Amazon Apps where you can get a few more apps but don’t expect to find all you want there either.

I did find an app called 1 Mobile Market which offers the more recognized apps like Instagram but even that can be dodgy. So we must still wait with baited breath.

Apple’s not the only one pushing for continuity between it’s products, Blackberry Blend allows you 

to seamlessly interact between your phone and computer even if you left your phone at home!

The Passport is the most powerful out of all the blackberry’s and boasts an impressive 3450 mAh battery which is substantially more than the 1810 on the iPhone 6 and the Samsung 5’s 2800. Over the past few days that I’ve been using it, it’s been lasting me easily into the following day before I have to charge it.

We don’t have the time to go through everything but I can assure you that from a productivity point of view, you’re not going to get much better than the Blackberry Passport. It’s solid phone with a bunch of features and I for one am actually torn to have to give this back…cos I only review, I don’t get to keep.    

The LeapBand

(Make sure you check out the video review at the end)

You know, gone are the days when you regularly see kids playing outside kicking a soccer ball or even climbing a tree, instead you're more likely to find them inside watching cartoons or playing games. One company has decided to use games to get kids back outside. The company behind LeapPad has reinvented the adult fitness tracker for kids. Think of it as a crossover between the 90's Tamagotchi 

Pet and a fitness tracker, rewarding the kids with points for tasks completed.

At first glance it’s a bit bulky, but for kids, the bigger the better, right? They come in a variety of colours and there are personalized pets such as a monkey, panda, dragon or unicorn that "live" in the band to help guide the kids through activity challenges.

Games like Pet Chef (collect the healthy food items), Pet Boogie (a dancing game), and Pet Salon (teaching proper hygiene) provide fun ways for kids to interact with their pets and learn about healthy living, while 14 preloaded challenges command kids to "pop like popcorn," "walk like a crab," and "wiggle like a worm" with the accelerometer tracking their every move. Additional challenges can be downloaded from the company's LeapFrog Connect app. Parents can then track their kids' activity through an accompanying app.

Speaking of which, as a parent, you can lock the watch so that during school hours it’s just a digital watch and then back to it’s normal fun self afterwards.

Overall there is no doubt in my mind that at around R450, you can definitely afford to get one for your kids especially if gets them outside and let’s face it some kids need to lose some weight.