Well, I finally surrendered my and went for a Q5 – my friends who stayed with Blackberry warned me; I may have wished to give away my Q5 and use the Bold still… Let’s see?

Blackberry Protect for all your contacts no longer applies once you’ve switched over, Blackberry Link takes over – which means going via USB to your PC or laptop so you can backup your content. Highlighting text, copying and pasting is different now with no trackpad or trackball (this is good, as in less moving parts) but there are plenty of instructional videos to talk you through.

Those instructional videos are necessary, since whatever you learned from Curves, Javelins or Torch no longer apply here – many sweeping or swiping gestures, almost like Star Trek: Next Generation’s touch screens in Engineering. Videos on this phone are way faster, it boosts WiFi signal and makes it zip along, rather like Chrome as a browser.

Zoom is almost a universal gesture when you want to adjust your camera’s focus, two fingers like pincers closing in or spreading apart to make the object larger or smaller before you snap. What I personally do not like is if you copy an image from Facebook you cannot rename before you save (as per the Bold 9900), you have to go in via Blackberry Link and make the change.

The cameras for me are adequate, 5 mega-pixel on the back and 2 MP for the front which means easier selfies now, like an iPhone or a Samsung, folk have said this is inadequate MP’s but seriously? What, you want to count the armpit hairs on a beach shot? Grab a Nikon, bub, it’s a phone first!

Social Media on the Q5 is almost the same as using a laptop or PC, but there are still areas where you may have no choice but use full web (if a friend shares a story or an illustration via Imgur, then laptop or PC still is better for viewing) but in Blackberry world there are still too few apps for the 10.2 OS, only one app crossed over from Bold to Q5 and that was the One Touch Flashlight from Jaredco.

Cases for the Q5 in Barbados are not easy to come by, waiting for one from USA when family return from vacation. In all, the Q5 is a futuristic phone, but look forward to kinks being ironed out in future upgrades on the 10 OS which can make the device a worthy adversary against the iPhone or Samsung.