The BlackBerry Passport is a great device… if you’re man enough to handle it. That’s the message that National Post writer Jonathan Kay is delivering with his review of the Passport in which he proclaims that BlackBerry’s newest flagship phone is the most masculine device around. In fact, he says that the Passport’s musclebound virility is so strong that some of the lady-folk in his life find it a might bit intimidating.
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“Many of the women I’ve shown the Passport to — including female colleagues, my wife and her friends — seem vaguely horrified by the thing,” Kay writes. “Even with two hands, one told me, the Passport feels like something that fell off the bottom of an old fridge. I assure them that they’d get used to it in a few days, if they give it a chance. But the starkly boxy aesthetics scare them off.”
But then again, the Passport isn’t for the faint of heart — it’s designed for manly men who do real work. This is why Kay doesn’t mind if the Passport doesn’t fit comfortably in his pants pocket — because real men who need to do real work just put it in their suit jacket pocket where it fits just fine.
And besides, can you imagine John Wayne or Steve McQueen fretting because the smartphone they carry isn’t as light or thin as their wife’s dainty little iPhone? Or course you can’t! That’s why, as Kay explains in his conclusion, he’s glad that BlackBerry has gone back to its roots and made a device that may not be fashionable but that helps him get stuff done.
“The Passport has become my everyday device,” he says. “For a user who sees a smartphone as something primarily designed for banging out short-to-medium length email, interacting on social media, taking and sharing family photos, and reading long-form content on the web, it’s the best machine I’ve ever owned. And it’s great to get my fingers back on those rounded Blackberry buttons, even if not everyone in my family appreciates their true ergonomic beauty.”
