Passport短評:"走形"的黑莓手機

“Why should I care?”

“我爲什麼要在乎它？”

That’s the phrase I uttered to myself when I first unboxed BlackBerry’s latest smartphone, the Passport.

這是我第一次打開黑莓最新智能手機Passport的包裝盒時的自言自語。

Why should I care about the device’s odd 4.5-inch square screen? Why should I care that the device is the same size and shape as its namesake? Why should I care that Amazon’s App Store is preinstalled on the Passport?

我爲什麼要在乎Passport古怪的4.5寸正方形屏幕？我爲什麼要在乎它“名副其實”的尺寸和外形（它的大小和形狀都和一本護照差不多）？我爲什麼要在乎這部手機上預置了亞馬遜的應用商店？

Okay, okay, forgive my skepticism. There’s a lot to love about the Passport. It’s the first product launch under BlackBerry CEO John Chen, who took over the struggling company last November. In an effort to turn it around, Chen said he wanted to return to the Canadian company’s roots by providing devices and services that appeal to large companies, a.k.a. the enterprise.

好吧，請原諒一下我的懷疑主義情緒。要說Passport手機值得喜愛的地方還是很多的。它是新CEO程守宗去年11月上任以來黑莓發佈的首款產品。爲了將這家風雨飄搖的公司扭虧爲贏，程守宗表示，他希望讓黑莓重新紮住它在企業界的“根”，提供主要面向企業界的設備與服務。

A travel document-shaped phone fit for business travel? Sure. Why not?

一本長得像護照的手機真的適合商務旅行嗎？當然。爲什麼不呢？

BlackBerry BBRY -1.77% positions its oddly shaped device—which certainly succeeds at drawing attention to the company—as the ultimate productivity tool for those who want to get work done. If the marketing sounds familiar, it is: In recent years, BlackBerry has let out a business-focused battle cry with every major product release. It’s as if the company is saying, “Please, forgive us for the pink BlackBerry Pearl Flip.” Or perhaps, “Here is a phone that won’t run Flappy Bird.”

Passport奇異的外形無疑爲黑莓拉來了一些人氣。黑莓將Passport定位爲面向商務人士的終極生產力工具。如果你覺得這種定位口號耳熟的話，那是因爲它之前也這樣幹過：近幾年來，每次有重大的產品發佈，黑莓都會推出以商務爲主題的宣傳語。這家公司給人的感覺就像在說：“請原諒我們推出了粉色的黑莓Pearl Flip手機”，或“這個手機不能玩《飛揚的小鳥》(Flappy Bird)。”

In truth, the Passport’s screen lends itself to displaying more information without forcing you to rotate the device, as you will often do with a phone of more conventional proportions. I found the screen quality to be on par with, if not slightly better than, Apple’s iPhone and most high-end Android devices on the market.

實際上，Passport的正方形屏幕的確可以顯示更多信息，而不必像傳統比例的手機一樣需要橫放屏幕。我認爲這款屏幕的質量也毫不遜色於蘋果的iPhone和市面上的大多數高端安卓設備。

And you know what? The Passport may be a square, but I came to appreciate its dimensions. In testing, I grew to respect its wider view, unobstructed by a digital keyboard—though I would gladly forfeit screen space to make room for a more classically sized BlackBerry keyboard. (More on that in a moment.)

你知道嗎？Passport的屏幕雖然是正方形的，但我卻開始喜歡這種比例了。在測試中，我越來越喜歡它更寬廣的視角，同時它也沒有數字鍵盤的阻擋——不過如果黑莓犧牲一定的屏幕空間，換成經典尺寸的黑莓式鍵盤，我想我也會欣然接受。

I also came to appreciate a feature called BlackBerry Blend, new in version 10.3 of the company’s mobile operating system. No, it’s not some smoothie—it’s a service that allows you to access the content and messages on your phone from your desktop computer, even if you’ve left it at home (or in the car, or in your office desk drawer). After a few initial connection hiccups, I found myself frequently connecting to the Passport from my Apple Mac desktop computer and Apple iPad.

我也開始欣賞起黑莓在10.3系統中推出的BlackBerry Blend功能。你可不要顧名思義，以爲它是一種飲料。它是黑莓最新推出的一項服務，可以讓你通過臺式電腦等設備訪問你的手機中的內容與信息，哪怕你把手機忘在家裏、車裏或辦公室的桌子裏都不成問題。雖然初次連接有點小麻煩，但後來我就頻繁地通過蘋果的Mac臺式電腦和iPad連接Passport手機了。

As for that keyboard: It’s much different than the physical keyboards found on other BlackBerry devices. The Passport’s keyboard is limited to three rows (the classic BlackBerry arrangement is four). The bottom row is split by a spacebar. The shift and symbol keys, normally found flanking the space bar, now reside on the screen in digital form.

至於鍵盤：它與其它黑莓設備的實體鍵盤區別不大。Passport的鍵盤只有三排（而經典的黑莓鍵盤則有四排）。最底下的一排被空格鍵分開。一般位於空格鍵兩側的Shift和符號鍵則以數字形式存在於屏幕上。

Like most people, I use a virtual keyboard on my personal phone. I found it a struggle to readjust to a physical keyboard. The first day I felt like I was blindly mashing the keys in an effort to elicit coherent words from it. (Luckily, BlackBerry 10 includes a mechanism to correct misspelled words, even when a physical keyboard is used.) The pain eased over time. Still, I’m not sure that traditional BlackBerry users who are quick to profess admiration for the classic BlackBerry keyboard would be singing praises of the Passport’s version.

像大多數人一樣，我在我自己的手機上用的也是虛擬鍵盤，我發現要重新適應實體鍵盤還有點麻煩。尤其是評測的第一天，我差不多是盲目地按着那些按鍵，試圖拼出連貫的句子。（幸運的是，儘管使用了實體鍵盤，但黑莓10依然有拼寫糾錯功能。）隨着時間的推移，這種痛苦感慢慢變淡了。不過我仍然不確定用慣了經典黑莓鍵盤的人是否會爲Passport的鍵盤唱讚歌。

Moreover, the Passport’s keyboard has a secondary function: it’s a covert trackpad. You can swipe your finger over it to scroll through spreadsheets, navigate emails, and delete words. With a double tap, activate the text selection tool to precisely edit a document.

PassPort的鍵盤還有另一層功能——它還是一個隱蔽的觸控板。如果你用手指掃過鍵盤，它就能實現翻頁、郵件和刪除文字功能。雙擊還可以激活文本選擇工具來精確地編輯一個文檔。

Once you find the functionality, it’s a novelty—then it wears off. I found it awkward to ignore a fully capable touchscreen to use the keyboard as a trackpad. What’s more, I repeatedly activated the text selection tool as I deliberately typed, which changed the focus of the cursor and thus the destination of my entered text. Frustrating.

在你發現這項功能的一剎那，感覺還是挺新奇的——但這種新奇感很快就消退了。那麼大一塊觸屏不去使用，反而把鍵盤當觸控板，這種感覺還挺尷尬的。另外在我打字的時候，文本選擇工具經常被激活，導致光標的位置都變了，因此我輸入的文字錯了位，讓人很沮喪。

I wanted to love the ingenuity of the Passport’s combination trackpad-keyboard, but I failed to have the “Aha!” moment I was so desperately looking for.

我也希望愛上Passport觸控式實體鍵盤的卓而不羣，但最終卻並沒有找到我苦苦尋找的驚喜。

By the end of my testing, I wasn’t sad to put the Passport down. It’s hard not to respect the device’s bold departure from norms in the category, and there’s clearly a niche market for a device like this. But for the vast majority of BlackBerry users still clutching legacy devices, the Passport is not the BlackBerry you’re looking for. And for those who have moved on to other platforms? It’s difficult to go back.

在測試結束時，我放下了Passport，但我卻並不覺得悲傷。這款設備大膽地獨闢蹊徑，讓我很難不對它表示尊敬，另外這款手機顯然還是有屬於它的小衆市場。不過對於那些仍然抱着老款設備的黑莓用戶來說，Passport或許不是你心目中的那臺黑莓。對於已經投奔其它平臺的用戶來說，恐怕他們也很難轉投回來。

Why should we care about the Passport? After spending quality time with it, I still don’t have a solid answer to that question. I do know people are talking about it, and by extension, its maker. Now that I think about it, perhaps that was the point.

那麼我們爲什麼要在乎Passport呢？在花了不少時間評測這臺設備後，我對這個問題仍然沒有很好的答案。我知道現在有很多人談論這款設備，順便也談到它的製造商黑莓。現在想來，或許這正是原因所在。