BlackBerry Ltd. is officially rolling out Leap, its all-touchscreen smartphone, globally with its first stop in the U.K. You can now pre-order the device on the BlackBerry Leap’s official site, but the device won’t start shipping until April 24, 2015. The device is selling for $275 or £199 for those in the U.K.

 

Other devices launched by BlackBerry this year featured the company’s signature QWERTY keyboard, but the BlackBerry Leap does not. Will BlackBerry fans be open to trying out an all-touchscreen device? BlackBerry stated that this device is directed at career-driven, young professionals, but does it have the features these types of people want and need so they will choose it over other flagship smartphones that have recently been released?

 

BlackBerry Leap vs. other flagship smartphones

 

Design and dimension

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BlackBerry Leap: Height 144 mm x width 72.8 mm x depth 9.5 mm; weight 170 g; features an edge-to-edge display, slim design, and perforated texture back housing with a soft-touch finish that delivers grip and comfort for the user. It features dedicated keys for volume control, mute and lock-power on/off. As mentioned before, the signature physical QWERTY keyboard is missing, but it does have an on-screen BlackBerry Keyboard that can be used in portrait or landscape mode that features contextual auto-correction, next-word prediction and a personalized learning engine that gets to know the way you type.

HTC One M9: 144.6 mm x 69.7 mm x 9.61 mm; weight 157 g. It features a dual-tone all-metal body with mirrored edges that are ergonomically tapered to effortlessly fit your grip. The unibody back is curved to deliver the streamlined look and feel of the HTC One series smartphones.

Galaxy S6: Height 143.4 mm x width 70.5 mm x 6.8 mm; weight 138 g. Features include a metal bezel that cascades into sophisticated glass, and it sports a Gorilla Glass 4 back cover.

iPhone 6: Height 138.1 mm x width 67 mm x depth 6.9 mm; weight 129 g. The phone fFeatures an ion-strengthened cover glass, rounded edges and curves that seamlessly connect with the anodized aluminum enclosure at the back.

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Display

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BlackBerry Leap: 5-inch HD touch display with 1280 x 720 pixels.

HTC One M9: 5-inch Super LCD3 capacitive touchscreen display with 1920×1080 pixels, ~441 ppi pixel density and Corning Gorilla Glass 4.

Galaxy S6: 5.1 inches, 2560×1440, Super AMOLED display with 577 ppi and Corning Gorilla Glass 4.

iPhone 6: 4.7 inches, LED-backlit, widescreen multi-touch display with IPS technology; 1334×750-pixel resolution at 326 ppi or Retina HD display, with a fingerprint-resistant, oleophobic coating on the screen.

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Internal components

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BlackBerry Leap: Qualcomm MSM 8960 1.5 GHz processor, 2GB RAM and 16GB Flash, which is expandable to up to 128GB via microSD. It also features Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz, 4G Mobile Hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, GPS and micro USB 2.0.

HTC One M9: Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa core 64-bit, 4 x 2.0GHz + 4 x 1.5GHz, Adreno 430 GPU, and an internal memory of 32GB, which can be upgraded to up to 2TB with a microSD. It also features 3GB RAM, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, hotspot, Bluetooth 4.1, A-GPS, GLONASS, NFC, infrared and microUSB 2.0.

Galaxy S6: Exynos 7420 chipset; 64-bit Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 & Quad-core 2.1 GHz Cortex-A5; 32/64/128GB memory with no microSD slot for expansion; 3GB RAM; NFC; infrared port; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot; Bluetooth LE; A-GPS, GLONASS and Beidou.

iPhone 6: A8 chip with 64-bit architecture; M8 motion coprocessor; runs iOS 8; available in 16/64/128GB with no microSD slot; NFC chip; Bluetooth 4.0; Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac; dual-band and Wi-Fi hotspot.

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Camera

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BlackBerry Leap: 8MP auto-focus primary camera with five times digital zoom, 1080p HD video recording at 30 fps, flash, touch to focus and video image stabilization. It has a 2MP front-facing camera that is capable of recording 720p HD videos and has three times digital zoom.

HTC One M9: 20MP primary camera with dual-LED flash with features, such as automatic simultaneous video and image recording, geo-tagging, face/smile detection, HDR and panorama; and a 4MP HTC Ultra Pixel front camera.

Galaxy S6: Back camera: 16MP, 5132 x 2988 pixels, optical image stabilization, autofocus, LED flash. Selfie camera: 5 MP, 1080p@30fps, dual video call, Auto HDR; and wide-angle lenses.

iPhone 6: 8MP iSight camera with 1.5µ pixels; autofocus with focus pixels; True Tone flash; five-element lens; sapphire crystal lens cover; auto image stabilization; burst mode; slo-mo video; 1.2MP FaceTime camera; burst mode; auto HDR; geo-tagging; face detection.

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Sensors

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BlackBerry Leap: Accelerometer, Proximity and Ambient light.

HTC One M9: Ambient light, proximity, accelerometer, compass, gyro, magnetic and a Sensor Hub.

Galaxy S6: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, gesture and heart rate.

iPhone 6: Barometer, three-axis gyro, accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor and fingerprint.

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Battery

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BlackBerry Leap: Has a 2800 mAH battery that the company promises can last up to 25 hours with mixed use.

HTC One M9: A non-removable Li-Po 2840 mAh battery that can last up to 391 hours on standby, 25 hours and 20 minutes talk time on 2G, or up to 21 hours and 50 minutes on 3G. It has a Quick Charge feature that charges to up to 60 percent in just 30 minutes.

Galaxy S6: Non-removable Li-Ion 2550 mAh battery.

iPhone 6: Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion 1810 mAh battery with a standby time of 250 hours.

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Operating system

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BlackBerry Leap: BlackBerry 10.

HTC One M9: Android 5.0 Lollipop with HTC Sense.

Galaxy S6: Android 5.0 Lollipop.

iPhone 6: iOS 8.

What you need to know

 

First off, the BlackBerry Leap is not a high-end smartphone like the others mentioned in this comparison piece. It is priced much cheaper than the other handsets at only $275 off contract, but it promises to deliver enterprise-grade security to consumers, such as support for encryption, built-in malware protection and backup, wipe and restore.

Another feature of the BlackBerry Leap worth noting is the BlackBerry Hub, a place where you can manage all your messages from text, email, social media and BBM so you can easily stay on top of everything. And like other smartphones running on other platforms, the BlackBerry Leap also has a voice and text personal assistant so you can easily perform tasks while doing other things, such as driving or attending a meeting.

BlackBerry Leap offers security features, such as password protection and screen lock, but no fingerprint scanner. Though it lacks high-end features like its competitors, for a $275 smartphone, the BlackBerry Leap is not too shabby.

Image source: http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberry-leap/overview.html