HANDS ON: BlackBerry Q5 is a solid, budget-friendly smartphone

It may look like the recently launched BlackBerry Q10, but don’t confuse this new handset with its higher end cousin: the Q5 is a completely different, budget-friendly phone, designed for emerging markets.

So how does it compare to the Q10? I got my hands on one to see the changes BlackBerry made in order to keep the costs down on its latest smartphone.

Matte plastic feels light

The first thing you’ll notice when you pick it up the Q5 is the material it’s made from. You won’t find any metal on the Q5, it’s essentially all plastic (minus the screen). The smooth, matte plastic feels quite light in your hands and significantly cheaper than the Q10. The buttons along the sides are made from plastic and when you flip it over you’ll notice there is no back cover (BlackBerry decided on a non-removable battery to keep costs down).

The screen is surprisingly nice. At 3.1-inches, this touchscreen is not only the same size of screen as the Q10 but it also has the same resolution (720 x 720). What’s different is the tech inside the screen: the Q10 sports an OLED display while the newer Q5 has LCD technology.

Flipping the phone around in my hands I also noticed the lack of an mini HDMI port. A BlackBerry rep on hand confirmed there is no “video out” on this model.

Front and back camera

Like the Q10, the Q5 has a front and back camera. The front camera is rated at 2 megapixels, while the rear camera has been downgraded. Instead of an 8 megapixel camera, BlackBerry opted to put in a 5 megapixel camera. I did take a few photos with the device and certainly noticed a difference, between the photos taken on the Q5 and my Q10. (The room was somewhat dark which made some photos slightly soft). Unfortunately there is was no easy way for me to get the photos off the device so I can’t share them with you.

For those interested in the tech specs, the Q5 sports a 1.2 GHz dual core processor compared with the Q10’s 1.5 GHz dual core chip. I didn’t notice a huge difference in performance, however the phone wasn’t loaded with many apps so multitasking opportunities were limited.

Memory falls short but overall a solid smartphone

So where else did BlackBerry cut back? Memory! The Q5 will come with half the memory found in the Q10. Yup, only 8GBs of built-in memory.

The BlackBerry Q5 may come across as a budget smartphone but it’s actually quite nice. Sure it doesn’t have the polish of the Q10, or the Z10 for that matter, but at least it will give users the BlackBerry 10 experience at a fraction of the cost. How much it will sell for remains to be seen.

The Q5 will come in a variety of colours including red, white, black and pink. Emerging markets such as Asia and South Africa can expect to get their hands on the Q5 this summer.