BlackBerry’s DTEK60 is its most powerful phone yet

BlackBerry has announced its latest smartphone today, the oft-leaked DTEK60. Succeeding the DTEK50, which was announced earlier in the year, the DTEK60 is also made by Chinese manufacturer TCL, but steps up the specs, and the price, significantly, for people looking to interact with BlackBerry’s heralded Android software suite.

With a 5.5-inch QHD display, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 3,000mAh battery, and 21 megapixel rear camera, the BlackBerry DTEK60 is considerably more powerful than its predecessor, but at $499 USD ($650 CAD), it is not in the same price range, either.

According to BlackBerry, the phone “provides enterprises and organizations with full access to the Android ecosystem and higher-end specs to help power productivity. It comes equipped with all the security features that BlackBerry’s Android OS devices have, including best-in-class security patching and the DTEK by BlackBerry app that allows users to monitor and control their privacy on their phone.”

The phone itself, as powerful as it is, was unveiled with little fanfare and no carrier support in the U.S. or Canada. While it does have some features that the DTEK50 lacked — a fingerprint sensor, a high-resolution camera with 4K capture support, and a high-density display — BlackBerry is not emphasizing the hardware, but the software. This mixed message is something that BlackBerry does very well, and is best seen in the introductory paragraph of the DTEK60’s press release:

BlackBerry Limited, a global software leader in securing, connecting and mobilizing enterprises, today announced the latest in its series of most secure Android smartphones, DTEK60.

It’s the software that the company wants people to care about, and rightfully so: it had almost no influence over the DTEK60’s hardware, but has built its version of Android into a powerful, attractive and, most importantly, secure conduit for its enterprise-first philosophy.

To that end, the DTEK60 has the same security features as its Android predecessors: DTEK, the app; Hardware Root of Trust; FIPS 140-2 encryption; Secure Boot; and Android for Work support, in partnership with Google. Because of that extra security, it launches with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, with no immediate plans to update to Nougat.

More: Read CrackBerry’s hands-on with the DTEK60!

According to BlackBerry, “customers who order DTEK60 from ShopBlackBerry.com will receive a complimentary accessory bundle. US and Canada customers will receive a DTEK60 Soft Shell and Rapid Charger for free and customers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands will receive a DTEK60 Pocket Case and Rapid Charger for free. This offer expires on November 8th at 11:59 pm PST.” Go get it!

See at BlackBerry

BlackBerry Priv: How does it stack up a year later?

How has BlackBerry’s first Android offering held up this past year?

With the BlackBerry Priv closing in on its first birthday, now is a perfect time to take another look at the phone and see how it has held up over the year, and whether or not it is still a phone worth considering. This was BlackBerry’s first device to run Android, and it has the company’s iconic physical keyboard under its well-known slider. At first, many loved the idea of having the keyboard again, but is that enough to tie you to a phone for more than a year?

BlackBerry has been great about pushing monthly security patches the same day as Google, and in comparison the company did a pretty great job of getting Marshmallow pushed out timely. For all the things that BlackBerry has done great with this phone, there are a number of things that could have been done better, and those are more obvious after a year.

Let’s take another look at the BlackBerry Priv and see if it is worth buying one today.

BlackBerry Priv Hardware

From the beginning, the BlackBerry Priv’s hardware was divisive. The slider design with the physical QWERTY keyboard was appealing to some people, while others thought that it was a waste and unnecessary. It has a 5.4-inch display with a resolution of 2560×1440, which is still great even compared to the latest flagships.

Inside, you’ve got a Snapdragon 808 paired with 3GB of RAM, which still offers great performance for most daily tasks. From streaming media to browsing the web, and even some casual gaming, the Priv holds up well with very little lag.

With the Priv being a slider, the build quality has always felt a bit off to me, and the phone doesn’t feel as high quality as it should. When tapping on the screen with it slid down you’ll notice some bounce, and when it is extended up touching the top of it throws off the balance of the phone in your hand.

Luckily, the sliding mechanism has held up well.

The back is non-removable, like the battery, but it is made from a plastic piece with a carbon fiber-like design on it. Several times over the past year I’ve noticed times where the sides of the back piece didn’t feel secure giving the back some bounce during use.

Luckily, the sliding mechanism has held up well, and I’ve yet to experience an issue with opening or closing the phone. The keyboard is something that I want to use more than I actually do, but sliding the phone open to use it gets a bit annoying at times. If you’ve used a BlackBerry keyboard in the past, you’ll feel right at home, and the new swipe gestures that made their way over from the Passport are great if you remember to use them.

The hardware is definitely unique, and that means that some will love it and others will hate it.

BlackBerry Priv Software

The software on the Priv has made great strides over the past year. With the OS version jumping up to Marshmallow from Lollipop, the monthly security updates being available the same day Google announces them and the various updates to its own set of core apps, BlackBerry has made it far more enjoyable to use this phone. Recently, the company announced that it would transition to focus mainly on software, and in the past few months it has shown the value of that decision — even if it means doing away with in-house designs like the Priv in the future.

First up, the BlackBerry Hub. Having one central place for your notifications is awesome, and makes finding things much easier, but when the Priv was first announced, it was slow and didn’t support all the apps it should. Over the past year, BlackBerry has made it significantly faster and has added support for apps like Slack, Facebook Messenger, and more.

Other apps, like the BlackBerry Launcher, BlackBerry Keyboard, and the BlackBerry Camera, have also seen big improvements over the year. With features like touch and hold to lock focus, faster HDR merging, a quicker shutter response and more arriving for the Camera, it makes it more enjoyable to use, though the picture quality doesn’t stand up to phones that have been released more recently. The BlackBerry Keyboard has become even more secure, gained the ability to use gestures like swipe to delete and much more.

As for major software updates, BlackBerry did a decent job of updating the phone from Lollipop to Marshmallow (on most carriers), but there is still no word as to when, or if, it will hit Nougat. BlackBerry has done a phenomenal job with its monthly security patches, making them available the same day that Google announces them. When it was first announced the Priv was said to be the most secure Android phone available, and BlackBerry has continued to back that message with the quick security patches and updates to its apps that make them more secure.

BlackBerry Priv Cameras

When it first came out, the Priv had what we considered to be a pretty great camera. Over the past year, a number of phones have been released with much-improved sensors, diminishing the Priv’s somewhat. The quality hasn’t got any worse over the past year, but as you can imagine it didn’t get much better, either.

The rear-facing camera is still acceptable, but the front-facing is laughable.

The Camera app has received a bunch of updates this year that enabled a number of new features and functionality. You can now lock onto a particular part of the photo to focus on it, and the shutter speed has been improved. This allows you to get the shot that you may have missed before, and the faster HDR merging speeds up the whole experience from taking to processing the photo.

For most, the rear-facing camera is still acceptable, but the front-facing camera is somewhat laughable. If you are looking for a phone with a top notch camera, the BlackBerry Priv was likely never what you were considering, and that still holds true.

BlackBerry Priv Battery life

Regardless of the phone, the older it gets the worse the battery gets. These things are not meant to last forever, but the Priv has done a great job at standing pretty strong. The battery improved greatly when the phone moved from Lollipop to Marshmallow and has held up well since. On average, getting through a day without charging isn’t overly difficult thanks to the 3,410mAh cell inside. Even being on cellular data all day, streaming some music, a few YouTube videos, various web browsing and social media usage, I get around 15 hours off the charger and have around 25-30% left at the end of the day.

As always, battery life depends on a number of things, like how many email accounts you have syncing, how much time the display is on, the strength of your cellular signal and more. Luckily, the Priv is Quick Charge 2.0-compatible, so you can plug in a Quick Charge 2.0 charger and get a huge battery bump in a short period of time. I’ve found that this is a far more feature to have in a phone than a proclaimed “all day battery life”.

BB Priv Should you buy it today?

Overall, the Priv has held up relatively well over its first year. Unfortunately for BlackBerry, many of the other manufacturers that have released phones in the past year have offered better complete packages, minus the physical keyboard. Between better battery life, significantly improved cameras and more, the BlackBerry Priv was left behind somewhat quickly.

The biggest factor here would be price. We’ve seen the Priv drop to around $300 off-contract, and at that price, it is worth picking one up. With BlackBerry taking over the updates for unlocked AT&T units you’ll be able to receive timely updates even if you aren’t an AT&T customer. At this price, the Priv is still worth picking up if you can deal with its flaws. For younger kids, or someone who really wants a physical keyboard, this is a great phone for that price.

At closer to $600 it is really hard to recommend purchasing the Priv over other phones that are available. With the less-than-stellar cameras, the occasional lag and the less than ideal battery life, you can find another phone to spend the money on.

See at ShopBlackBerry

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BlackBerry DTEK60 specs

What’s inside the BlackBerry DTEK60?

BlackBerry’s second phone in 2016 is a more powerful Android phone than its predecessor, the DTEK50, but follows the same path to market. The DTEK60 is made by TCL, the company behind Alcatel’s line of devices, but steps up the specs game in a big way.

Here’s what’s inside.

These products and services work with Google Home

Which products and services work with Google Home?

Google first introduced Google Home to the world back in May at Google I/O 2016, later revealing the final product alongside the Pixel in October. From everything we’ve seen, Google Home seems primed to eventually link up with any smart device in your home and allow you to control everything with just the sound of your voice.

Google has announced which products and services will be supported at launch, but there’s sure to be plenty more to come in the future. Continue to check back to this article in the coming months, as we’ll surely be updating this list as more products and services are added. We’ve broken things down into two categories — home automation products and supported services.

• Home automation
  • Chromecast
  • Nest
  • SmartThings
  • IFTTT
  • Phillips Hue
• Supported services
  • Spotify
  • Pandora
  • Google Play Music
  • TuneIn Radio
  • YouTube

Home automation

Chromecast

It should come as little surprise that Google Home works with Chromecast. Google hit it out of the park with their compact, Wi-Fi enabled dongles for video or audio that you simply hook up to your TV or stereo and allow you to stream media straight from your phone, tablet, or laptop.

Google Home takes things to the next level by allowing you cast video and audio from its supported services using only your voice. As if Chromecast wasn’t convenient enough already. I can think of many scenarios where I might want to pull up something from YouTube or change a playlist while I’m busy in the kitchen or otherwise preoccupied. Currently only YouTube is supported for video, but expect more services to be added — Netflix, Hulu and the like — as time goes on. We’ve linked to the 2015 model below, which remains a fantastic value at only $35… but it only displays at 1080p. If you’re interested in some higher definition, Google is set to start shipping a new Chromecast for 2016 — the Chromecast Ultra — which costs twice as much but supports 4K video.

See at Google

Nest

Nest is one of the best known manufacturers of smart home automation products, which include self-learning, Wi-Fi-enabled thermostats, smoke detectors and security cameras.

With Google Home and a Nest thermostat, you’ll be able to effortlessly control the temperature of your home using only your voice. Nest also works well with other smart products, such as lights, doorbells, and smartlocks.

See at Amazon

SmartThings

Samsung’s SmartThings is a very capable and customizable home automation system that features five different smart sensors for home monitoring, all linked together wirelessly via the Hub. The SmartThings Home Monitoring Kit comes with a Hub, two Multipurpose Sensors, a Motion Sensor and an Outlet. You can configure them however you like in your home, then get instant notifications if anything is out of the normal. You can also buy additional sensors, including an Arrival Sensor and a Water Leak Sensor.

SmartThings is incredibly versatile as it is, but we’re super excited to see what integration with Google Home will look like.

See at Amazon

Phillips Hue

Phillips is one of the leading manufacturers of wireless LED smart bulbs. The Phillips Hue lineup features a multitude of different lighting options for around your home, which must be configured through the Phillips Hue Bridge via. You’re able to connect up to 50 lights to one Bridge and then configure and control them in so many different ways.

We should expect Google Home to work just as well with Phillips Hue lights as it does with Apple Home Kit, meaning you’ll be able to set and adjust your Phillips Hue lights throughout your house without leaving the couch, or easily turn off all the lights when you’re leaving the house or it’s time for bed.

See at Amazon

IFTTT

IFTTT is a free web service that lets you create chains of conditional commands, called “recipes,” to automate processes between apps and smart home devices. IFTTT is an abbreviation of “If This Then That”, and that’s exactly how the recipes function. For example, say you’re concerned about your teenager getting into the liquor cabinet when you’re away. If you have a SmartThings Multipurpose Sensor on the liquor cabinet door, you can create an IFTTT recipe that goes “if the liquor cabinet door is opened, call my phone,” so you’ll know instantly if something’s up.

IFTTT is compatible with a ridiculous number of IoT devices, applications, and online services — including Google’s OnHub router — and is something you should definitely check out with or without Google Home. But with day one compatibility with IFTTT, we’ll be super interested to see what sort of recipes folks can cook up and how fluidly it will integrate with Google Assistant.

Supported services

Spotify

Over 100 million people use Spotify for all their music streaming needs. Of those, 40 million are paid subscribers. The point here is that Spotify is massively popular and if you aren’t already using it, you probably know a bunch of people who do.

With Google Home, simply say “OK Google”, followed by your favourite artist, album, song, or playlist, and your music will almost instantly start playing through the Google Home speaker. This is absolutely perfect for playing music in the kitchen when your hands are too messy to be handling a phone, or for setting the right mood for a party or intimate evening. We’re also eager to see how smooth it is to use Google Home to cast your Spotify music to your Chromecast Audio-enabled speakers for an even better audio experience.

Pandora

Pandora is a fantastic music recommendation platform which is used by over 200 million people in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. It’s a customizable internet radio streaming service that allows you to curate your own streams using algorithms that recommends new music it knows you’ll love based on your musical tastes and how you’ve rated other music.

With Google Home, you’ll be able to throw on your favorite Pandora station using just your voice. In its current iteration, Google Assistant is unable to identify songs like Shazam or other apps of that sort, but we’d hope to see your Google Assistant give you the information about a song you’ve just discovered on Pandora, just by asking “what song is playing?” as well as an option to rate songs and skip if necessary.

Google Play Music

Kind of a no brainer, but Google Home will obviously play well with Google Play Music. And that’s great news, since Google has slowly build its core music app to encompass a full-fledged streaming service featuring 35 million songs available on-demand (with a subscription) along with mood- and activity-based stations (you may have known it as Songza), along with being a great option for podcasts. A natural fit with Google Home, you’ll definitely want to get a Google Play Music subscription if you don’t already have one.

TuneIn

Believe it or not, but some people actually prefer to listen to the radio. TuneIn is absolutely the go-to app for accessing online radio, music, and talk stations. Even with the free version, you get access to over 100,000 radio stations from around the world, along with over five million podcasts as well. If you decide to upgrade to the premium subscription, you’ll also get access to live NFL and MLB play-by-play, along with a large library of audiobooks.

It will be really interesting to see how third-party streaming services such as TuneIn are integrated into the Google Home experience via the Google Assistant, whether you’ll be able to make a broad request (“Play a top-40 radio station from the UK in TuneIn”) or stick to more specific requests based on your app usage (“Play my favorite local radio station in TuneIn”).

YouTube

YouTube is another obvious starting point for Google to incorporating video search and playback controls with Google Home. Some might be disappointed with a lack of support at launch for Netflix, Hulu and other video services, but with so much content available on YouTube and natural alignment within Google’s existing ecosystem (hello, Chromecast), it’s a great place for Google to finetune their voice searching capabilities before opening things up for other video services.

Google Assistant on the Pixel currently only works well with YouTube for video — you can ask to open up Netflix or other apps, but have to navigate the rest of the way from there. But we’re likely not too far off from being able to come home, say “OK Google, cast The Office on Netflix to the living room” and binge watch the night away, for better or for worse.

YouTube is also the world’s largest music streaming service, becoming such a primary destination for lovers of music that they came out with the YouTube Music app. A subscription to YouTube Red is required.

The YouTube Music app isn’t available for everyone just yet, but it too is listed as being compatible with Google Home. The Pixel’s Google Assistant frequently completes music requests using YouTube, so we’d imagine it to be just as smooth an experience with Google Home.

What you do you think?

Are there any services or products you’re hoping to connect and control via Google Home? Let us know in the comments!

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ICYMI: Treat all your wine right with a $1,500 fridge

Today on In Case You Missed It: A wine fridge called Plum can scan your wine bottles, seals so they stay fresh and then calibrates the temperature inside for maximum deliciousness of pour for every glass. Downside? It’s $1,500 so you could take a vacation to wine country instead. Meanwhile, Harvard scientists announced a 3D-printed heart on a chip that has integrated sensors, so it can be used to test medications, which should rapidly accelerate medical studies.

The most detailed Milky Way Galaxy yet is here. The particle accelerator on a chip talk at the SLAC lab is here and the Singapore driverless bus news is here. For drones attempting a lightbulb change, go here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

WiGig will bring superfast WiFi to devices next year

The WiFi Alliance has finally certified “WiGig,” a high-speed, 60 GHz standard otherwise known as 802.11ad. Using beamforming, it can yield speeds of up to 8 Gbps, or nearly 1GB per second from a distance of up to 10 meters. As many as 180 million devices using the standard, like routers, laptops and smartphones will arrive by the end of next year, the group said. It also unveiled the first five certified WiGig products from Intel, Dell and Qualcomm, among others.

The WiFi Alliance notes that the new standard operates in the “less congested” 60 GHz spectrum, which should aid speeds. It says that manufacturers can implement “handoff” technology so that your phone and router will automatically switch to 2.4 or 5 GHz WiFi if you leave the room, for instance. Samsung, among others, has already released uncertified WiGig devices.

8 Gbps is around three times faster than the best 802.11ac routers can do right now. However, in the real world, most current devices can only hit 600 Mbps or so, less than a fifth of the theoretical maximum in some cases. In theory, 802.11ad should be faster, thanks to the beamforming and distance limitation, but you’ve essentially got to be in the same room as the router to benefit from such speeds. Of course, your smartphone or laptop would have to support the standard too, not just the router.

Qualcomm’s WiGig video from CES 2016

Nevertheless, if the new standard can do even 20 percent of the promised speeds, it’ll be useful in a lot of cases. If you usually work from the same room and transfer files around your network, for instance, you’ll no longer need a wired gigabit connection. And folks with Google Fiber or other high-speed internet services should get faster wireless speeds — my router and smartphone combination limits me to 200 Mbps, for instance, while my laptop gets 1 Gbps via wired ethernet.

The first mobile device to carry the standard is the Dell Latitude E7450/70, and both Intel and Qualcomm have certified router solutions. Expect a flood of devices to carry the standard soon, including smartphones, tablets, and notebooks. By next year, many will probably factor the standard into their “buy” decisions.

Source: WiFi Alliance