BlackBerry is a great company with great products and great ideas. But BlackBerry is failing hard. And the reason is that BlackBerry’s model is obsolete.
Don’t look now, but it’s 2013. If your handset isn’t running iOS or Android, you will not succeed in the consumer smartphone market.
And succeeding is exactly what isn’t happening at BlackBerry. The company recently announced a quarterly loss of about $1 billion. They announced that 40% of BlackBerry employees will be laid off. They’ve put the company up for sale. They’re selling their jet.
It’s over, basically. But it doesn’t have to be.
What BlackBerry really needs is to become an Android-handset maker.
What BlackBerry Would Bring to the Android Universe
BlackBerry’s core competency is optimizing phones for fast, secure and reliable communication.
Most Android phones, especially the major ones, are general purpose smartphones optimized for entertainment and media. They’re consumer phones for media-consuming consumers.
But some people are people people. They crave that flashing red light on a BlackBerry phone that says a message has arrived. They want instant communication (via push, rather than sync or polling), and to type real messages fast, maybe even on a really good physical keyboard. (No, really. Lot’s of people want a physical keyboard instead of a larger screen — and smaller screens give you better battery life, too.) And they want the privacy and security of sending what is essentially SMS but not associated with a phone number, or essentially IM but over a more-secure network.
What BlackBerry should be focusing on is satisfying actual demand. Specifically, BlackBerry should be building an NSA-proof messaging and email service. BlackBerry is a better position than just about anyone to develop a highly secure, private messaging system that can’t be hacked by the NSA, by the Chinese government or by Eastern European organized crime syndicates.
A truly secure communication system, however, will require tight integration between hardware and software. And that’s why releasing BBM on iOS and Android won’t quite cut it.
If BlackBerry became the Android phone that offered total communication security and privacy, they would gain not only a huge following in the Android consumer community, they would start winning back the business they lost to iPhone in governments, military organizations and enterprises.
Everybody whines about NSA privacy violations. BlackBerry could do something about it.
Here’s another thing BlackBerry-on-Android would bring to the Android universe: BlackBerry users. BlackBerry has won some super loyal fans over the years. I suspect that many of those loyal fans will switch to iPhone when BlackBerry dies.
What Android Would Bring to BlackBerry
Apps. In fact, it’s the relative lack of app options that is killing BlackBerry today.
But even more than apps, BlackBerry needs the world of services that some apps can offer, including Google services and random cloud services.
Mostly, however, Android would bring BlackBerry back to life.
The path forward for BlackBerry is very clear. Create a mission to become the most secure and best Android communication device possible.
If BlackBerry does that, they will succeed. If they don’t, they’re done.
M 850 / 900 / 1800 /
1900
3G Network HSDPA 900 / 2100
4G Network No
SIM Dual mini SIM
Status Available April 2013
Dimensions 143.5 x 70.8 x 9.1mm
Keyboard Touchscreen
Colors White, Black, Yellow
Cover Plastic
Type TFT capacitive touchscreen
with 16,000,000 colors
Size 720 x 1280 pixels, 5 inches,
293 pixels per inch (PPI)
Card slot MicroSD, up to 32 GB
Internal 4 GB
OS Android 4.0 Ice Cream
Sandwich
Processors 1.0 GHz dual-core CPU
RAM 1 GB
Alert types Vibration, MP3 ringtones
Loudspeake
r Yes
Audio port 3.5mm jack
2G GPRS – up to 85.6 kbps;
EDGE – up to 236.8 kbps
3G Up to 7.2 mbps uplink; Up
to 5.76 mbps downlink
4G No
WIFI Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, WIFI
hotspot
Bluetooth Version 3.0
GPS A-GPS
NFC No
USB MicroUSB v2.0
Primary
8 MP, up to 3264×2448
pixel pictures, Geo-tagging,
auto focus, face detection
camera with LED flash
Video Yes
Secondary 1.3 MP up to 1280×1024
pixel pictures
Capacity 2100 mAh Li-Ion battery
Stand-by N/a
Talk time N/a
Music play N/a
Sensors Accelerometer, Compass,
Ambient light sensor
Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Push
Mail, IM
Browser HTML
Java No
- SNS integration
- MP4/MPEG4/H.263/
H.264 player
MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/
FLAC player
- Document viewer
- FM radio
- Image viewer
- Voice memo/dial/
command
- Predictive text input
- Google Search, Whatsapp,
Google Maps, Gmail,
YouTube, Calendar, Google
Talk
Tecno
Phantom
F7
Specificat
io
Body::
Tecno P3 Has a Dimension of 115.8 x 62x
11.7 mm whereas Tecno N3 Has a
Dimention of 115 x 62x 11.7 mm
Both devices comes in 3 Colors; White,
Black and Yellow.
Display::
Both Devices Has a Size of 3.5 inch.
Tecno P3's Display Material : TFT whereas
Tecno N3 Was Built with LCD.
Tecno P3 Type : CTP
Both Devices Has a Resolution of
320*480
Memory And OS:
Tecno P3 Has an Internal memory of
512MB whereas N3 has an internal
memory of 64MB.
Tecno P3 has a RAM of 512MB whereas
N3 has a RAM of 64MB/512MB
Both Devices has a Card slot space for
Micro SD and can occupy external
memory of about 32GB.
Tecno P3 runs an Operating system of
Android 2.3.5 while Tecno N3 runs an
Operating system of Android 2.3.6
Gingerbread.
Network and Connectivity:
Both Devices Supports 3G, 2G.
Both Devices Has a 2 Sim card slot
P3 Supports WLAN and WIFI while N3
doesnt.
P3 Doesnt support GPS Navigation while
N3 Does.
Both devices has Bluetooth, USB Port and
EarPhones.
Both Devices supports GPRS and EDGE
EntertainMent:
Both Devices Doesnt Support Flash, Ebook
reader and Ganmes.
P3 doesnt support Java while N3 Does
Both Devices Has FM Radio.
P3 Supports Voice recording while N3
doesnt
Camera:
Both Devices have a Primary Camera of
3MP.
P3 has a Secondary Camera of 0.3MP
while N3 doesnt.
P3 Has a FlashLight while N3 doesnt.
Both Devices has an Image size of
2048*1536.
Both Devices support Video Recording.
Battery:
Tecno P3 has a capacity of BL-4E
(1400mAh), Talk time : Up to 3.5hrs and
Standby time : Up to 150hrs. While N3
has a Capacity of Li-Ion 1400mAh, Talk
time : Up to 7hrs and Standby time : Up
to 200hrs.
Basic Tools:
Tecno P3 Comes with Torch, Calculator,
World clock, Alarm, Memo, Calendar while
N3 Doesnt come with any.
Other Features:
Tecno P3 Sensors: Accelerometer,
Proximity, Compass
Tecno N3 Sensors: Accelerometer, gyro,
proximity, compass
Tecno P3 Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email,
Push Mail, IM
Tecno N3 Messaging: SMS(threaded
view), MMS, Email, Push Mail
