Episode 43: Unboxing the Blackberry Q10

-You have this round. Would you care for a game of chess? -This week on Always On-- -There it is. -So the BlackBerry-- -Welcome to Always On, I'm Molly Wood. -And I'm Jeff Cannata. -And this is the show where we take a look at the tech that's part of your life. -And your future. -Now, I know that there are people out there who are dying for a physical keyboard on their smartphone and the options are getting pretty slim. Luckily, the BlackBerry Q10 has finally arrived. -Yes, it's the reason BlackBerry is BlackBerry glorious buttons for your thumbs. -So, let's unbox it and see if it's any good. At long last. -You've been waiting for this. -I have been waiting and I am excited about this perversely because we didn't have a good look with the BlackBerry Z10. -So-- But BlackBerry is all about that physical keyboard. -They are and so-- -So-- -the BlackBerry Q10 or as we are calling it the BB Q10. -I love that. -I mean, if barbecue is involved, how can we not love it. -We did torture test this thing by throwing it in barbecue sauce. -So, I think we have smarter ideas. So, I think we have smarter ideas. All right, can we-- can we finally? -Let's do it. -Right. There it is. Boom! Q10. Very hands-- It's like a BlackBerry. -It's like your [unk] thing. It's half under whelming, half awesomely old school. -I love the-- I love the physical keyboard. I really do. -I know. -That screen is tiny, though it doesn't feel tiny. -Yeah, that is embarrassing. -Yeah. -Wow. Look how small that is. I'm assuming it's so lightweight because the battery is not in there yet. I mean, it's a nice size overall. -Right. -It sort of feels nice in the hand. I don't know that you'd want something so tough heavy if the screen was a lot bigger. -Maybe, and you know phones are getting so big now. I feel like you can still get a lot more real stay on the screen and keep the keyboard. -And that wouldn't feel too weird. Let's see what else they have in here. -It feels like a BlackBerry-- -BlackBerry, I have to say this is a nicely packed box. See there. Got a whole bunch of instructions, which you need because it's a brand new operating system that no one has ever used before that's completely impossible to navigate as we found out so painfully in Barcelona. Okay. Aha, battery. -Battery. All right, so [unk]. -I'm gonna-- I'm gonna box this out right now. This is like the linguini of headphone cords. Fettuccine? -It looks like fettuccine to me. -It's more of fettuccine. -Yeah. -Yeah. -This is odd. -It is. -One of those little hoops for. -I don't know. -My earrings? All right, we'll finish that up and do the specs. The BB Q10 is running BlackBerry's newest OS 10.1. -Its processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 with 1.5 gigahertz dual-core CPUs. -It has 2 gigs of RAM with just 16 gigs of flash storage. It is expandable via micro SD, but only up to 32 gig. -The display is kind of sad. It's a 3.1-inch screen and the resolution is only 720 x 720. -Speaking of the keyboard, it is the biggest selling point. It has a full 4 rows with 35 keys and BlackBerry says the keys are 30% bigger than on previous models. -In terms of the camera, the rear-facing shooter is 8 megapixels with an LED flash and 1080p HD video recording. -The front-facing camera is 2 megapixels and can take 720p HD video. -The Q10 is a 4G phone and it also supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC. -Battery life could be dicey. The battery is 2100 mAh, but is removable so you could carry a spare. -BlackBerry claims up to 13.5 hours of talk-time over 3G and 14 days of standby time, but that's also over 3G. -For connectivity, you'll find micro USD for charging and micro HDMI for sending video to TVs, which you will want to do because the screen is so bad. -The BB Q10 cost $199 on contract. -Oh look, I can get Maxim for free. -Oh! -That's kind of the only-- -Can I see it for a second? -one of the only apps available. You could borrow that from me if you want. So, other than that, first impressions-- -Yeah, you know, not so-- not a very responsive screen in our short time with it, but-- and small and not a lot real estate, but I like the keyboard. -I know, I mean I'm excited to do some email I guess and try it out, but man as a full-featured smartphone in a world over realm with full-featured smartphone-- -Yes. -this does seem a little on the weak side and may be not quite a smart. Read our full review over at cnet.com to find out if it is the crack berry for you, if you really have to have that keyboard. I'm gonna spend some time with it. -Yeah. -But I'm not gonna use those weird headphones. Time for us to take a quick break. When we come back, it's time to get dirty with an action-packed road test of 3 wearable cameras. -And I am upclose and personal with NASA's new robot, the R2. You've got to love any robot called R2. -Pretty much and also that robot is really strong. -Yes. -Welcome back everybody. Look out GoPro. That action camera space is only getting more competitive, versatile, exciting. -Yeah, and we picked 3 of the top competitors and put them in the hands of 3 motocross pros. You're gonna wanna see this. -Yeah. Time for an action camera shootout extreme. I am at Club Moto at Livermore, California with 3 motocross racers. I'm giving each of you an action camera and I want you tear it up with this for at least a week. Mark, you're getting the ContourROAM 2. Cody, you're getting the new Sony Action Camera. A lot of buzz on that one. And Terry is our pro, you're getting the GoPro White edition. All right, I want you to put this through their paces. Really get them dirty, all right? Let's tear it up. -Do it. -Hi, I'm Terry Bostard. I'm gonna be testing the GoPro Hero 3 today. The stuff that we ride on is mostly dirt track motocross, lots of jumps or up in the air or down and I feel like it's pretty durable especially if it's in the case. Most of the time when I'm riding, I'm kinda looking down. So, I'm gonna angle that camera up and once I've done that, I go ahead and I cinch this down so it's tight and doesn't come off and then I'm ready to ride. I do like the design. It's really simple to put on. As far as the buttons, I found those to be pretty user-friendly and I got those right away. As far as features, we worked on the Wi-Fi thing, you know, trying to get the angle and I did have a hard time getting out it. We couldn't get it to turn on or off very well and it would get stuck, you know, but taking away the Wi-Fi option, it works pretty good. The photo is just pretty darn good. It was pretty clear. I think that's the newer technology coming out so I think they've come along way and so I was pretty happy with it. -Hi, I'm Cody Thomsen, 17 years old. I love to race dirt bikes and today I'm testing out the Sony Action camera. -I love riding. It's really fun to me. I look forward everyday I get to ride. I like the camera. It's pretty good design. Film is good, but it's just not adjustable. It's hard to get the perfect angle to see exactly what you're eyes are seeing when you're riding. The features on the camera came with 2 different cleats and one right here-- and one right here so I got to put them on my helmet and I put one in a different spot of my bike then I got a couple of different angles with me riding which is pretty cool. It has a suitcase that goes around it so that when you get hit by dirt, you know, it's not gonna scratch the lens at all. I got to download the footage of my camera that I took. I really like it. It seemed to come out really good. I had a wide angle. I got to see all the tracks that I was riding. The only downfall about it was the wind, so you can hear the wind hitting the camera and it just covers up a lot of the audio. -Hi, I'm Mark Braden. I'm 18 years old. I race motocross and today I'll be testing up the ContourROAM 2 camera. I've been racing for 12 years, riding for 13. I ride 4 times a week pretty much of my life. The design is pretty cool. It's slim. It's not that heavy on the bike so I can't really put it under helmet. For a time I really feel is when it's on the side, which gets a little bit heavier, but it's [unk] that. It does have a case 'cause it's kind of [unk] when you're riding 'cause it tends to get mud on it or dirt flying at it. The best part of this camera is the record function, slide forward to record and slide back to turn it off. It's a lot better than all the other cameras because it's-- it's not so much of is it on, is it not on and the beep that tells you the camera is on is really loud. I can hear over my bike and-- with my helmet. The photo is pretty good. It's got a wide lens on it so you can see everything on the side. Really the only thing I didn't like about the camera is that it doesn't have a case and that the mounting. It has a mount on these both sides, but it doesn't have it on the bottom. It just has a tripod mount, which in motocross you wanted to be upright so you can see over the top of the visor a little bit. That way, you can see down. I think that's part of the reason why you don't see as much as the bumps 'cause it does not focus right in front of you. In motocross, maybe the camera is not the best, but it's definitely nice to have that on and off in motocross. -They're just babies. Oh my God. It's the mud got all over me and it was awesome. Let's see how they're actually getting along with the cameras. Hi guys, how they go out there? -It's good. -You're looking good. All right, I'm gonna keep it short and sweet 'cause I know you spent a lot of time with these cameras. Terry, you have the Hero3 White Edition. Is this a buy or do not buy for you? -It's a buy for me. -It's a buy for you. All right, Mark, how about the ContourROAM2? -The Contour would be a buy if I had a car. Of course, I have a bike so not a buy. -No good on the bike bomber. It looks cool. -That was cool. -All right, Cody, how about you with the Sony camera. -Not a buy. -Not a buy. Not like no hesitation. Not a buy. -Yeah. -All right, how do you feel about any of the other cameras? Would you-- Are you in the market for an action cam? -The GoPro is good. -The GoPro. -I'd go with the GoPro. -The GoPro. -GoPro. -I'd say that's a sweet for the GoPro. I'm kinda with them. Once you go with GoPro, it sort of hard to go back. -It's true. With the-- the Contour has an interesting shape and it lets you gonna put it in different places, but I think GoPro is still king. -I mean, our car guys love the Contour and so I kinda with them with our motocross tester-- -Yeah. -on the idea that if you're in a vehicle, that's great but may be they should make a case for it. -Yeah, it's right. I think they do. Like actual case, not an argument. Moving on to future tech, Jeff is exploring other ways to sort of get beyond Earth. -That's right. I went back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas to go mono y roboto with NASA's new robot. -From landing a Rover on Mars, the researching had a capture in line asteroids. NASA is innovating in which that just a few years ago were unimaginable. I visited Johnson Space Center for a tour of their Robotics Labs where engineers are designing robots to be used in the next generation of space travel. Meet Robonaut. He has a head, torso, 2 arms. He's 300 pounds and a version of him is currently on the space station assisting astronaut, which is a first for NASA. I'm gonna meet him right now. So, what are the kinds of things that you're hoping to have and be able to do in the future? -Its ultimate-- The ultimate goal is for us to be outside the space station helping the crew with things like work sight setup. -What will make this possible is a complex set of systems inside the robot. -All the motors for the hand are actually back here in the forearm and they actually pull and push on tendons diagnostically to be able to move each of the finger joints. -Wow! -So, that's how these motions actually being created. -So ours are basically just like the muscle systems of them. -It's very-- It's very similar, yeah. And we've got 4 senses also on all these tendons so we can detect how much force we're pulling out with the fingers. We can control the grip strength. -Here is Robonaut's hand with the skin off. It's pretty awesome if not a little creepy if you've seen terminator. What's inside the chest-torso area? -Sure. So, Robonaut's brain is not in his head. It's actually right here in the chest so we've got a computer cage in here that does all the heavy duty processing. -So when will he be programmed to feel love? -It's on the list. -It's on the list, okay good. -It's somewhere. -I'm glad that's worked in. Robonaut can do a surprising number of things. It can shake hands. It can use a drill and it can even lift weights. So, I hear that Robonaut is a champion weightlifter. -He's pretty good. -Can we have him one-on-one sir, robots versus humans for the faith of humanity? All right. I can do that much. You like slow control. That's the way to maximize your pump. I like your style. Okay. That's hard. That's difficult. Robonaut winning, humanity losing. All right, point made Robonaut. You have this round. Would you care for a game of chess? -That's amazing. I feel like a Battle Mech or Iron Man. -Robonaut is just one way NASA is using robotics to assist with necessary human functions. The other is with this exoskeleton. It weighs 57 pounds and it uses robotics to give you added movement, collect data and give you potentially superhuman strength. NASA wants astronauts to be able to wear suits like this while in space possibly giving them extra stamina and strength. -I wish I could convey to you exactly how I feel, but words fail me. Even though the motors aren't operational, I'm not getting the added strength and benefit, but these are eventually going to give. I feel like if I jumped, I would leap out of this building right now. It's an incredible feeling. -Yeah. When the motors are powered when they are turned on, it augments their strength and augments their ability. So, right now, there are 4 degrees of freedom, 4 active degrees of freedom at the hips and the knees -Right. -so that you can feel that here and here and your other degrees of freedom are passive. -Right. What is all these stuff? -So what you have here in the backpack is your main brainstem computer. -Okay. -So, if you think about you have one main computer that then does distributing computing throughout each of the joints. -Well, you can imagine it replacing the need for forklifts or, you know, just doing sort of mundane tasks where you can lift and move things the normal humans could. -You know, people talk about this is the decade of the exoskeleton and it's just gonna get lighter and smaller from here. -Wow. So, you're saying this is the decade of the exoskeleton so by the end of this decade I'm gonna have one of this. That's why you're promising me. -I think that is very possible. -I love it. -Of course, you can see where all these researches headed. First, NASA, then someday who knows maybe we'll all be wearing robotics suits. Can you say Iron Man? -So, it turns out that robots are superior to humans in a few key areas? -That was demoralizing. -A little bit, yes. I mean, I think I could still outrun it. It has no legs. It has no legs. -There you go. Other than 20 pounds, that's no slouch. -Thank you. That's-- -I appreciate that. -Mwah! -Ahem. I can't wait to hear your feedback on that segment and how-- how good you are at 20-pound weightlifting. For this week, let's answer the current crop of mail. Paper is the new laptop. -This is what we've decided. Our first email on paper comes from a Jacob G who says, "Hey, Molly and Jeff, I'm just saying-- He's just saying. -He's just saying. -actually writing, but you know, also saying that in the last episode you released you said the screen was unresponsive so you could not take a picture." Actually, you can take pictures by just simply pressing the volume buttons on the iOS device. -Device. -I can't believe that you did not know that. I kind of can't believe we didn't know that. We did know that, but you know-- -We got-- -you're in the heated situation. -I did not know that. -Well, I knew-- I did know that, but I didn't take it. -He said. -Anyways to get to the point, I think you should have bought a lifeproof case now owned by Google. Put an iPhone or iPad in it and see how far down you can get into the water. -I like that. That's his point, not the thing about the volume button. -Yeah. -I just wanna be clear we got roughly 9 million emails so it's not about the volume buttons that I had no idea so thank you for the helpful tip everyone-- -Yeah. -everyone. Another helpful tip, Ethan writes in and says, "Hi Molly and Jeff, I love the show. In the new season, there is something I would like to point out. It comes in all caps. No touchscreen works underwater! -Okay. -Since the touchscreens and almost all devices work off the electromagnetic field generated by your body, the touchscreen wouldn't sense your finger when it is underwater. The water around you absorbs the field. I think that it is pretty bad that myself being 13 knows this and you don't, although I'm sure it's been pointed out in the mail data segments in the past episode. -Uh huh. So, you're saying there's a chance. It could work underwater. -You guys learned good. -Dang it. -That's just-- -Okay. -Fine. -You know, our defense it was very-- we were water logged as well and our-- sometimes our brains don't work underwater. -Apparently not. Thank you for all the awesome feedback everyone again. The bulk of almost all email following the Hawaii episode was those 2 things so consider us educated. -Mea culpa. -And please keep the feedback coming. You can email us @alwayson@cnet.com and feel free to correct us on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. Coming up next week, we torture test the BlackBerry Q10. We're getting some much needed RNR. -And the future of transportation. It's just might be electric bikes. -We look forward to seeing you next time on Always On. -Thanks for watching. And the backing up every now and then. The beeping was not enough of a warning for someone. -I was so-- damn it. We've got to move our cars-- right now. I'm sure that's a typical thing. -I don't know how far are you. -It's better than Volkswagen. -I don't know how late are you. -I'm like an hour and half over. It was an hour. It's-- Man, it's too late. All right. Also, that's [unk] area is probably-- It's pooping on my tire right now.