Hey guys, any comment on the call volume on the Z30. I have read reviews from people complaining about the soft earpiece volume and is supposedly fixed in the latest 10.2.xxx updates.

Also does the Paratek antenna helps with the signal reception. I'm currently using Bold 9900 and the signal (Digi) keep on fluctuating between 1-3 signals and 3G/edge status while using indoor.

Still seeking for a phone with good call quality (no dropped call, clear sound at both party), and good signal reception over my iPhone 4S.

My Z30 finally arrived after placing my order yesterday. Overall speaking I am very impressed with BBOS 10. Mind you that this is my first time getting exposed to it and I'm already started to love it.

As expected, the immediate things I did after unboxing it was plugging it into a charger and let it update to 10.2.1.5xxx from the stock 10.2.0.xxx. At that point I didn't really explore it nor syncing my data such as contacts to avoid possible issues during the update. Coming from iOS allow me to share some impressive findings in both software and hardware on the Z30. Honestly speaking, it is very enticing for me to do that. Perhaps it's my love for the BlackBerry OS and the device itself.

Prior to that allow me to share some basic info. I had used iPhone for almost 3 years now and only started to get really interested about BlackBerry 3 weeks ago by purchasing a Bold 9900. Yes you heard me right, a three years old device and now a Z30. Main reason for the switch is finding a phone that had a great reception. I found that the reception on the iPhone is just okay and occasionally experienced bad call quality and the need to ask the other party to repeat a sentence, which is very annoying I know. The Bold 9900 proved it and despite my love on it, I found BBOS7 is not a prowess when it comes to modern apps multitasking and performance. Plus the apps on BBOS7 really showed it's age nowadays.

Without further ado let's begin.

# Software
Blackberry Hub. All my social connections, emails and notification under one roof, a unify interface for composing post to various services without having to open up multiple apps behind. Definitely a big reason why I purchase this Z30 in the first place.

Entirely swipe based user interface. Frankly speaking I'm never a fan of swipe gesture and I always thought it's a gimmick. But after trying it for just 5 minutes, I started to wonder why doesn't anyone think of it long ages ago?

Typing experience. The virtual keyboard. I have a confession to make. This must be the best virtual keyboard I had ever used. I had tried both iOS and Android keyboard and always found them to be very cramped at times. The text prediction is very akin to Octopus Keyboard on Cydia, which is no longer supported in iOS 7. I especially like the ample spacing and the silver lined separator between each key row. Pretty much like the actual physical keyboard on the Q10. I actually see a huge improvement on my typing speed and accuracy now. Bam bam bam!!

True multitasking. The ability to open up to 8 active application simultaneously, that's true multitasking. As a matter of fact, I'm having YouTube music open on the background while typing this.

Flash support on Browser. What more can I say, a desktop YouTube version on a large 5 inch screen? I'm satisfied.

Customization. BBOS 10.2.1 definitely comes with tons of customization options such as unique ring tones per application and per person in stock! Spent almost 15 minutes trying to put those ring tones and notifications alert that I downloaded in use. Sadly the LED color is not customizable but thanks to Bebuzz, you can do it too!

Android app compatible. I have heard people that used to side load Android application by going through complicated process but thanks to Amazon App Store, installing an Android application has never been easier. Granted not all apps are there such as QuizUp. I have read that applications that uses Google API framework will not work. Still not sure how Amazon App Store distribute the apps. Hope someone can shed some light on this.

# Hardware
5 inch AMOLED display. Compared to IPhone 4S meekly 3.5 inch screen, this screen is huge. The color gamut is quite what I expected since I had used PS Vita first generation which uses similar technology. It's not too overly saturated compared to some display I saw on Samsung phone. The screen is definitely less brighter than LED or LCD counterpart but hey, it's more power efficient.

Stereo speakers. My first time to enjoy any smartphone having dual speakers. Although they are located at the back unlike the nVidia Shield tablet, it still sounded clear and boomy when lie flat on the surface. Definitely a step up from iPhone and great for table conference call.

Ergonomics - Weight. Although 170g might seemed heavy compared to other similar sized smartphones with lesser weight, I felt that the overall weight is well spread and distributed. The curved edge also lies comfortably when you hold it on one hand. No complaints on the ergonomics here. You just got to hold it to feel it and ignore those numbers on the technical sheet.

Some gripes I felt about Z30:
Low earpiece volume. Despite cranking the volume to the maximum during a phone call over carrier network, it still sounded very low. This is in consistent and matches the reports posted by many users on CrackBerry. I'm not sure whether it's the OS update that causes it as I never tried 10.2.0 straight out of the box. I would love to hear some feedbacks on this. Meanwhile I will search around for solution. My 2 cents is this is probably something that can be solved by software and is probably overlooked by those BlackBerry developers.

Wow its getting late now and I'm going to pen off now. Going to set the alarm next and I have heard even setting an alarm is easy peasy compared to other OS'es.

P/S: Did I mentioned that I typed this post completely on my Z30? :-P

After testing my Z30 for two days and I still haven't found any good solution for the soft earpiece volume. As you said I'm sure the upcoming 10.3 can easily fixed it.

In terms of the display I must say that I found the color to be quite saturated which is largely due to the wider color gamut of the AMOLED display. For some reason I still prefer the sharpness and color display on my iOS device. Though I still enjoy using it for its OS.

As for the battery life I found that it can only last 15 hours at most instead of the reported 1 or 1 1/2 day of usage. I had set the screen brightness to around 10%, disable auto toke update and unnecessary communication capability. Device monitor showed that the Display is the biggest energy sucker and CPU usage is normal with no application hogging the demand.