BlackBerry phones

Raised as a usability problem by 30 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2008–2025), in 28 threads.

People raised many different problems with BlackBerry phones, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 33 complaints

Removed usability shortcuts that the classic BlackBerry OS had2025-08-31
Spacebar technique doesn't activate reliably, so the trackpad-style input is unreliable2024-04-14
Data connection silently pauses, so email stops arriving without warning2024-04-14
Mobile browser is terrible and crawls to a stop2023-08-31
Items that act immediately look identical to items that open sub-lists2021-10-19
Android version of the Hub is gimped without apps designed to work with it2021-04-29
Keyboard looks hard to use because keys are packed too tightly2020-03-09
Android apps run on an outdated runtime, making the experience frustrating2019-05-31
Phone shuts down background apps too aggressively, disrupting use2018-10-04
Must look down and move hand to reliably hit send on touchscreen2017-05-06
Backspace suddenly acts as delete after an update, erasing text ahead of the cursor2017-05-05
Backspace is mis-hit, pressing enter or mic instead when correcting words2017-05-05
Typing without looking is hard on small phone keyboards; you can't rely on feel2017-04-16
Tapping non-email notifications just opens the other app, making the hub redundant2017-01-07
Backspace silently turns into Delete at line start, deleting text unexpectedly2016-09-25
Half-screen, half-keyboard form factor makes web browsing and typing a nuisance2016-02-05
Android interface looks ugly and may not be as effortless to use2015-11-03
Mobile web browsing was miserable; pages wouldn't render properly and UI was awkward2015-07-23
Background services repeatedly nag user to log in despite declining2015-05-23
Settings is not alphabetically ordered, making items hard to find2014-09-26
Too many gestures, not intuitive, and accidental swipes trigger unintended actions2014-09-25
Demo phone locked in sales-pitch mode; couldn't find how to look at real features2013-09-22
Enabling encryption can make the phone randomly and frequently reboot2013-03-30
First-time users may not know how to operate gesture controls without help2013-02-06
Locked-down corporate phones disable camera and browser, making everyday work hard and frustrating2012-06-29
Must wait about 5 minutes for reboot after installing or deleting apps2011-06-30
Taking a screenshot requires a Windows PC, USB cable, and a special package2011-04-25
Input system fights text fields, cursor locks on first word, and text boxes bigger than screen are unusable2010-06-26
Web browsing is very slow and frustrating due to the processor2010-06-25
Flaky and nearly impossible to get working with a Mac2009-12-27
Even simple apps are frustrating to use; they feel like cluttered email messages2009-07-13
No intuitive way to delete many non-adjacent email messages at once2009-06-16
Extra text in emails to scroll through slows the user down2008-05-25