Someone tweeted at the launch event of the BlackBerry Passport a few days ago: “I challenge you to bend the BlackBerry Passport.” You can never bend the Passport even if you tried to. Well, jokes aside, the BlackBerry Passport is an awesome smartphone both inside and outside.

The Passport could probably be BlackBerry’s “passport” to glory. At a time when every other smartphone company is focused on getting “inspired” from every other smartphone available on the market, it really takes bucket-loads of courage to come up with something as unique and radically different as the Passport.

Check out the official unboxing video below:

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When you first take a look at the BlackBerry Passport, you will notice the sqaurish overall design of the phone. The idea of the square display on the BlackBerry Passport is to allow you to see more content than most smarpthones on the market allow you to, without having to scroll up and down.

Granted the overall design is not pocket-friendly, but the BlackBerry Passport isn’t really targetted at everyone and anyone. The Passport is indeed a device for those power users, as we call them, professionals who “suit up”.

Specifications-wise, the BlackBerry Passport features better specs, when compared with earlier phones from BlackBerry. The phone runs on a 2.2-GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, which has been customised for BlackBerry. The Passport also features 32GB of Storage capacity, which can be expanded to upto 128GB using a microSD card.

The phone also comes with a 4.5-inch display that features a resolution of 1440-by-1440 pixels, enforced using Gorilla Glass 3. In addition, the phone features 3GB of RAM. When it comes to the OS, it runs BlackBerry 10.3 OS. Using the user interface is a charm – we did not find any lag, when perfomring most operations on the Passport. Whether it was opening apps, browsing the web, or taking pictures, the BlackBerry Passport felt quite fast.

A bucketload of connectivity options also accompany the BlackBerry Passport. This includes 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n and 5Ghz a/n + ac Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wi-Fi Direct, Miracast, DLNA, and assisted GPS. The Passport also comes with SlimPort which supports both USB and microHDMI out.

In the photography department, the Passport’s comes quipped with 13-megapixel unit at the back and a 2-megapixel unit at the front. An LED flash handles the business of low light usage.

One of the strongest points of any BlackBerry device is its flawless keyboard. This not only holds true in the Passport’s case, but it raises the bar further.The Passport comes with a touch-enabled QWERTY keyboard. Yes, you read that right – touch-enabled. The keyboard lacks the fourth row of keys, which essentially are the numbers and punctuation marks. This part of the keyboard can be invoked virtually on screen through the flick of a finger.

When it comes to apps, you will now have access to 2,40,000 Android apps, thanks to BlackBerry’s partnership with Amazon. The BlackBerry 10.3 OS brings in some new features, too. There’s a BlackBerry Assistant which can search through the internet for something or browse through your email in search for something you are looking for. Think of it as an advanced version of Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana.

There are a wide range of security features, too, such as the BlackBerry Safeguard, which can encrypt the device, including the microSD card, with 256-bit AES encryption. There’s also BlackBerry Protect which lets you find your phone if it is lost or stolen. You can even remotely lock or wipe your device in case your device is unrecoverable.

The performance of the BlackBerry Passport is truly amazing, thanks to the quad-core processor and 3GB of RAM. The battery is huge, too. The BlackBerry Passport comes with a 3450 mAh battery which offered us a battery life of almost 2 days on a single charge. That is brilliant!

Though some may find the BlackBerry Passport to be a bit hefty and unusual, as we mentioned earlier, the device is really not for everyone. It is for you, if you are power user. It is for you, if you seek world-class security. It is for you, if you want to own something unique. And it is definitely for you, if you seek performance, functionality and comprehensive feature-sets. The BlackBerry Passport is worthy of our Editors’ Choice award.

Price: AED 2699 Approx.

Specifications:
Network Support: 2G Network, 3G Network, 4G Network
SIM: Nano-SIM
Weight: 194-gms
Keyboard: QWERTY
Display: IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Display Size: 1440 x 1440 pixels, 4.5 inches (~453 ppi pixel density)
Display Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Memory Card Slot: microSD, up to 64 GB
Internal Memory: 32 GB, 3 GB RAM
Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA, LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth v4.0, NFC, microUSB v2.0 (SlimPort)
Primary Camera: 13-MP
Secondary Camera: 2-MP
OS: BlackBerry 10.3 OS
Chipset: Qualcomm MSM8974AA Snapdragon 801
CPU: Quad-core 2.26 GHz Krait 400
GPU: Adreno 330
Battery: Non-removable Li-Ion 3450 mAh battery