Digital Gizmos No. 2: PORSCHE DESIGN P’9981 BlackBerry
Between tapping out email, checking schedules, reading the news, and playing the occasional game on the sly, your typical smartphone spends as much time in your hands as in your pocket. For those who take care in every detail of their appearance, then, it becomes imperative to carry a handheld of the same high aesthetic quality as, say, a timepiece or other jewelry.
For those who carry Research In Motion’s BlackBerry smartphones, the answer to that sartorial conundrum could very well be the The Porsche Design P’9981 BlackBerry. The device retains much of the distinctive BlackBerry “look” and features, including a physical QWERTY keyboard and BlackBerry 7 operating system, while filtering them through Porsche Design’s design language. The result is piece of hardware that’s steely and angular, durable and timeless.
While Porsche Design’s take on the BlackBerry is stylish—and a little pricey, at 1,475 Euros—your individual mileage with the device will depend largely on your love of BlackBerry devices as a whole. Some aficionados will only give up their prized Bold or Torch when you pry it from their cold, dead fingers. Other smartphone users prefer Apple’s iPhone or Google Android to the most recent BlackBerry operating systems. The latter have the least to gain from the Porsche Design P’9981, as it doesn’t really evolve the standard BlackBerry interface beyond some minimalist reimagining of its icons.
Nor is there anything particularly next-generation about the internal hardware, which includes a rear-facing camera capable of shooting 720p video, a 16GB microSD card, and a 1,230mAh battery that will get most users through an entire day without recharging, provided they’re not video addicts. The 2.8-inch screen is small for smartphones these days, but the 640×480 resolution nonetheless offers crisp graphics.
If you’re a diehard BlackBerry fan, though, none of that matters—you simply want that familiar BlackBerry experience. And if you want that experience wrapped in a modernistic and steely package, and if you have the cash to burn, then the Porsche Design P’9981 could be your next smartphone. NK
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