BlackBerry plans to move into the future with a new smartphone design that is square, as seen in their upcoming model known as the Passport. This 4.5-inch square screen is being touted by the company on their official blog to have screen advantages over Apple’s iPhone 5s (they actually pictured an iPhone 5 though?) and Samsung’s Galaxy S5.
This is their explanation on why a square 4.5-inch screen has its advantages, in particular for professionals such as architects, mortgage brokers, healthcare professionals, financial traders, and writers:
Based on academic typology, the optimal number of characters on a line in a book is 66 characters (current rectangular smartphones show approx. 40 characters and BlackBerry will show 60 characters). BlackBerry Passport offers its size and aspect ratio to accommodate these characters, making it the ideal device for reading e-books, viewing documents and browsing the web. No more worrying about portrait or landscape modes, and no; you aren’t missing anything.
Consider how IMAX screens start with a more traditional 16:9 aspect ratio projection for conventional movie trailers and then expand to their true dimensions (and the audience goes, “ooh”). The Passport is like the IMAX of productivity, and you don’t have to sacrifice screen real estate, vertically or horizontally.
The IMAX of productivity in a smartphone, eh? Sold. Would you switch from your iPhone to the Passport?
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SOLD! Where can I get this monstrosity?
At your nearest IMAX theatre?
ME TOO! Because the iMax, I mean IMAX analogy makes so much sense and does not backfire at all! Like making the square aspect ratio rubbish for 90% of other tasks, some which are productivity related. like making a presentation? most projectors nowadays are 16:9, (at least where i work and offices i go to present)
this is just a disfigured 7″ tablet with the bottom part cut out and replaced with ancient buttons for grandpas who can’t accept ‘new’. this is NOT a superior phone. it’s an inferior tablet.
OMG its crazy, It bad enough you can barely (if you have a big enough pocket) fit the galaxy into your pocket, where would you put this thing, your purse, sheesh. And, yes there are those of you who could, I couldn’t even hold it in one hand.
Why would you commit to a $500 device so you can use it for 1 purpose?
I swear this has to be an April
Fools joke.
They believe it will be a game changer. We’ll have to wait and see. The numbers won’t lie.
There’s one thing missing at Blackberry: intelligence!
This shows that Blackberry engineering and marketing team are simply mad and in need of major psychiatry. However, let’s hold off on calling the nice men in white suits until we get some empirical evidence to act as the nail in the coffin.
A phone that you can hardly fit in your pocket, if at all. Great idea. Geezus.
Blackberry needs new designers…
I know several people planning to get the passport actually. I’m not one for physical keyboards anymore but time will tell. It does look like a good productivity device
The Passport is intriguing, but so was the Z10 that BlackBerry hyped up. You don’t even hear about the Z10 anymore, nor the Q10.
Yah the consumer marketing isn’t like it used to be, focus is mainly enterprise. But I switched from iphone to z30 last October and it is very well made. It’s too bad it doesn’t get the media exposure it needs.
Here’s the problem with the IMAX analogy. Unlike IMAX, we need to be able to also put a phone in our pockets. Phones are narrow because it matches our pockets. Sounds dumb but it’s true.
To everybody being hysterical about the illusion of Passport not fitting into a pocket: you are wrong, it fits normally and has been proven several times with testing models.
Well I guess it comes down to why someone would want a passport.
I really don’t understand the compulsion to put a phone in your pocket. Don’t we have cases and clips for that reason? It seems to me that putting the ever more thinner and more fragile phones in ones pocket is just an overall bad idea. Look at the bend for the new iPhone. I like the fact that the camera is way better, the CPU is way faster and it has a lot of options that the other phones dont. I also like that you don’t have to constantly turn it sideways when you want to see something at a decent size.