BlackBerry Classic review: For old times' sake

Synthetic benchmarks

BlackBerry Classic features Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 chipset with 1.5GHz dual-core Scorpion CPU, Adreno 225 GPU, and 2GB of RAM. As you have probably guessed by now, the hardware configuration of the smartphone is decidedly old. Qualcomm took the wraps off the MSM8960 in the distant 2011 - the year BlackBerry Bold 9900 launched.

We put the BlackBerry Classic through the paces of several hardware benchmarks. Unsurprisingly, the results came out pedestrian by today's standards. See for yourself below.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• BlackBerry Passport
  35173
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  21533
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  19912
• BlackBerry Classic
  18851

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• BlackBerry Passport
  628
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  564
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  495
• Nokia Lumia 830
  478
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  394
• BlackBerry Classic
  168

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• BlackBerry Passport
  2061
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  1435
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  1313
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1192
• BlackBerry Classic
  1160

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• BlackBerry Passport
  9916
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  5283
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5012
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  4875
• BlackBerry Classic
  2526

Web browsing benchmarks test JavaScript and HTML5 performance. The scores of BlackBerry Classic were once again far from impressive.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  12470
• BlackBerry Passport
  14624
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  15988
• Samsung Galaxy Core Prime
  18353
• Nokia Lumia 830
  26542
• BlackBerry Classic
  28732

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1085
• BlackBerry Passport
  1030
• BlackBerry Classic
  634
• Nokia Lumia 830
  599

As you can see above, BlackBerry Classic is hardly a device to smash through benchmarks with. Thankfully, its real-life performance paints a different picture - the QNX-based BlackBerry OS 10.3.1 is smooth and responsive even on such old hardware.

It's worth pointing out that the smartphone slows down when running some of today's popular Android apps. We tried popular titles such as Crossy Road and Spotify and noticed a bit of lag on both occasions.