BlackBerry Blend Review: Unleash the Power of Blackberry on Your Desktop

very good
key review info
application features
  • BlackBerry Hub implementation
  • (9 more, see all...)

The Canadian mobile phone maker Blackberry has come out on the software market with BlackBerry Blend, a free program that makes the link between your BlackBerry smartphone device and desktop. It provides seamless connectivity between smartphones and PCs.

This is not a Cloud service that promises un/limited storage access. It makes it easier for you to bring messaging and content that’s on your BlackBerry smartphone to your computer and tablet. There’s support for instant notifications so you can read and respond to your messages. Plus, you can access documents, calendar, contacts and media in real time and in a secure environment.

Connection and compatibility

You can connect to BlackBerry Blend via a Wi-Fi or mobile network or use a USB cable connection with your computer.

You also need to install BlackBerry Blend on your PC or tablet and then log in with your Blackberry ID. By default, the Blackberry Blend app is already installed on BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry 10 OS version 10.3 or later.

At the current moment, the following devices are compatible with BlackBerry Blend: BlackBerry Passport, BlackBerry Classic and BlackBerry Porsche Design P’9983. The application can be deployed on Mac OS X and Windows, as well as iOS and Android tablets.

There’s support for corporate intranet access in case your smartphone is connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The connection can be established via a work browser on your PC without having to be logged in to your company’s network.

Blend Dashboard

BlackBerry Blend seamlessly integrates into your Windows environment. The GUI’s got them all: it looks modern, clean, intuitive and streamlined. One of the things that I like about BlackBerry is that the products do not hide advertisements. BlackBerry Blend makes no exception and delivers an ad-free experience.

Four widget-like panels are incorporated in the main window for helping you access the Hub, email, BBM and SMS. The best part about them is that they reveal a preview of your data in real time. If you click on an email in the widget, you are automatically directed to that particular message.

The Dashboard offers at-a-glance view of the Hub, email, BBM, SMS, and calendar.
The Dashboard offers at-a-glance view of the Hub, email, BBM, SMS, and calendar.

Aside from the interactive widgets, you can check out your calendar events for the current day with the aid of a timeline.

At the bottom of the GUI you can find six small icons that allow you to access the Hub, BBM, SMS, Calendar, Contacts, and File Manager.

Device icon, connection status and info about a complete charge are also revealed in the GUI. A quick settings button helps you turn on or off the notifications and disconnect the current device.

BlackBerry Hub

The Hub is the place where you can view all your messages and content from a single panel or make the application show only BBM, text messages, or email accounts.

Checking the content stored on your BlackBerry smartphone is not the only thing this program is capable of. You can reply to text messages, BBM chats and emails directly from the main window.

BlackBerry Blend does not implement advanced features that you can find in email software such as Thunderbird, but it brings to your desktop the essential functions for answering to an email in no time.

You may perform searches and apply filters by subject, message, email address of the sender or receiver, attachment, unread, flagged or received content, or date (today, yesterday, last week).

Text messages can be pasted from the clipboard and may include emoticons. In addition, you are allowed to copy, delete or forward the messages, as well as mark them as unread.

When it comes to replying to emails, you can drag and drop attachments, set priorities (high, normal or low), embed multiple ‘Cc’ and ‘Bcc’ addresses, and enter a custom subject. Plus, you may forward emails, delete or mark them as unread, set flags, as well as look for emails in different categories, such as Inbox, Outbox, Drafts, Important, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred, or Trash.

The Blackberry BBM is also implemented in the Hub for helping you communicate with your friends right from your desktop. The GUI reveals the same familiar layout as the one adopted by the mobile app and lets you access feeds and channels, manage groups and contacts, as well as send invites.

Chat on BBM right from your desktop and send pings.
Chat on BBM right from your desktop and send pings.

You can insert emoticons and attachments, send pings, end the chat, change your display name and status (Available or Busy), and enter a message next to your display name.

The content that has been altered via BlackBerry Blend from your screen is automatically synced with your smartphone. For example, if you send several emails via Blend, you can find them on your phone as well.

Calendar and contacts

There’s support for a sleek and smart calendar with three different view modes: day, week or months. You can record events in the calendar by providing information about the subject and location, picking the start and end dates, and configuring recurrence parameters (e.g. every day, weekday, Friday).

Furthermore, you can add participants to the current event, set the event for all day, write personal notes, make events private, create reminders, and set the status of each event (Free, Tentative, Busy, Out of Office).

BlackBerry Blend displays a list with all your contacts (along with pictures), allows searches, and lets you sort contacts by groups, BBM, Twitter, SIM, or other setup accounts. You may create a list with your favorite contacts and add a new one to the list by entering details about the first and last name, company, prefix, company details, phone number, fax, pager, email address, IM, birthday, and personal notes.

File manager

The built-in file manager helps you save files from your computer or tablet to BlackBerry Blend so you can access them from any device connected to BlackBerry Blend.

You can copy books, camera files, documents, downloads, songs, photos, videos, voice recordings and other items. The files can be displayed in a grid or list and sorted by name, type, size, and order (ascending or descending).

The tool lets you move files between folders, view extra information about each item (e.g. name, file type, size, permission), and cut, copy, paste, delete or rename them. Photos can be previewed with the aid of thumbnails.


The Good

The BlackBerry Hub desktop implementation is probably one of the program’s biggest advantages. Whether you are working on personal or work projects, you can quickly reply to BBM chat messages and send custom emails.

At some point while testing the application, I found myself looking for WhatsApp and Viber notifications in the Blend Hub. Not to mention the disappointment when I had to pick up the phone and answer back. At the current moment, the application lets you work only with its branded chat messenger. Taken into consideration the company’s encryption policy, it’s hard to believe that it will adopt popular IM clients in the near feature.

The Bad

Stickers cannot be seen on your desktop, so you need to check your BBM mobile application. You cannot adjust the size of the thumbnails used for previewing the images.

The file transfer works flawlessly and is actually quick. However, your CPU and memory resources are affected. Even if you keep the application running in the background, it still eats up memory.

There’s support for only a few devices at the moment because the project is still under active development. You cannot initiate phone calls and view the call logs right in the program’s UI.

I did miss some things while chatting on BBM from my desktop. Timed messages and message retraction are not integrated in Blend, so they can be used only on your mobile. Only popup notifications are present in Blend, so you cannot set custom audio files.

The Truth

BlackBerry Blend adheres to the company’s goal of improving your productivity. It successfully brings into play an intuitive approach for writing emails, chatting on BBM, texting, transferring files, setting up calendar events, and managing contacts right from your screen. Although it still needs some refinements here and there, features like encryption and ease of use make it an indispensable tool for multitasking projects.

user interface 5
features 3
ease of use 4
pricing / value 5


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 

BlackBerry Blend (25 Images)

You can connect to BlackBerry Blend via a Wi-Fi or mobile network or use a USB cable connection.The Dashboard offers at-a-glance view of the Hub, email, BBM, SMS, and calendar.Introducing the Hub: the place where all notifications are stored.You can keep track of multiple email accounts directly from Blend.Writing or replying to an email is easy with Blend.
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