BlackBerry Motion Review

Syntethic benchmarks

The BlackBerry Motion is by no means a top-performer. That doesn't mean the Snapdragon 625 is underpowered, in fact it can handle your day-to-day tasks and casual gaming fairly well. BlackBerry's lean modifications to Android also means the phone won't hog the system's resources. An Adreno 506 GPU powers the graphics.

We've put the BlackBerry Motion up against a number of other smartphones in its price point and other smartphones running the Snapdragon 625. Let's see how the motion does among other smartphones. We've even added the Honor 6X, a phone that launched at the end of last year with HiSilicon's Kirin 655 and launched in the US for $250. We've also added the OnePlus 5T, which is at a similar price point but brings the best available performance for the money.

Starting off with Antutu 6, the BlackBerry Motion performed similarly to the KEYone and the Blade V8 Pro, all of which have the same Snapdragon 625 processor. The SD 626 in the Moto Z2 Play didn't fare much better of a score. Meanwhile, the Snapdargon 630 of the Moto X4 isn't too far ahead. The Snapdragon 835 on the OnePlus 5T is drastically quicker.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 8
  202645
• OnePlus 5T
  179790
• Motorola Moto X4
  71224
• Motorola Moto Z2 Play
  68322
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  67540
• BlackBerry KEYone
  62868
• BlackBerry Motion
  62664
• ZTE Blade V8 Pro
  62629
• Huawei Honor 6X
  57012

The BlackBerry Motion has a standard 1080p resolution, so you won't notice a significant difference between onscreen and off-screen test results since they are done in the same resolution. The general consensus thus far is if you plan on playing a lot of heavy games, you may be happier with something else.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 8
  60
• OnePlus 5T
  52
• Motorola Moto X4
  15
• BlackBerry KEYone
  11
• Motorola Moto Z2 Play
  10
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  9.8
• ZTE Blade V8 Pro
  9.5
• BlackBerry Motion
  9.4
• Huawei Honor 6X
  7.9
• BlackBerry Priv
  7.6

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5T
  22
• Motorola Moto X4
  5.8
• Huawei Honor 6X
  4.8
• BlackBerry KEYone
  4.1
• Motorola Moto Z2 Play
  3.8
• BlackBerry Motion
  3.4
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  3.4
• ZTE Blade V8 Pro
  3.4

Basemark OS II encompasses GPU, CPU, RAM, Web, and OS performance into a single score. Unfortunately, the Motion scored dead last among the other devices. Here, the Moto X4 and BlackBerry Priv lead the mid-rangers while the OnePlus 5T leaves the rest in the dust.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5T
  4235
• Motorola Moto X4
  1743
• BlackBerry Priv
  1704
• Motorola Moto Z2 Play
  1413
• ZTE Blade V8 Pro
  1346
• Huawei Honor 6X
  1307
• BlackBerry KEYone
  1169
• BlackBerry Motion
  1104

In this graphic test, the BlackBerry Motion was on par with the Snapdragon 625 and 626 devices of the pack. Here, the 2015 BlackBerry Priv fared better. These midrange CPUs are still no match for the Snapdragon 835, despite also having 8 cores.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5T
  38656
• BlackBerry Priv
  15072
• Motorola Moto X4
  14479
• Motorola Moto Z2 Play
  10455
• BlackBerry KEYone
  10445
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  10394
• ZTE Blade V8 Pro
  10376
• BlackBerry Motion
  10242
• Huawei Honor 6X
  8458

In Basemark OS 2.0, the results are a bit more staggered. Once again, the BlackBerry Motion is ranked toward the bottom of the list. Even behind the Kirin 655 on the Honor 6X.

In the last graphic-intensive benchmark, you can see the CPUs creating their own tiers. The Snapdragon 630 in the Moto X4 barely separated itself from the other mid-rangers, but not by a lot. Meanwhile, the iPhone 8 shattered the Snapdragon 835's score on the OnePlus 5T.

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 8
  1690
• OnePlus 5T
  856
• Motorola Moto X4
  189
• Motorola Moto Z2 Play
  139
• Huawei Honor 6X
  139
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro
  137
• BlackBerry KEYone
  136
• BlackBerry Motion
  131

Once you load apps and break the BlackBerry Motion in, you may notice some slight difference in performance over time - you'll notice this if you're a really fast smartphone typer. We think that a smartphone of price category pushing 2018 should not be this prone to software lag.

Despite using a mid-range CPU, the BlackBerry Motion's performance is generally good. It handles day to day tasks well, even during those intense message typing sessions when the predictive text and autocorrect are working hard.

The stability of stock Android should be a benefit to Android's performance. That, and Android 7.1.2 is the smoothest and most stable version of Android Nougat. We'd love to see the Android Oreo update take the efficiency and smoothness even further.

Unlike what you may expect, the BlackBerry Motion played games wonderfully. We were able to play Asphalt 8 with no dropped frames. Android gaming has become pretty smooth across most devices, even on midrange phones.

Where CPU power matters now a days is the few seconds or fractions of a second of time between performing actions. You'll notice this if you were to use video editing apps or anything that requires post-processing or rendering of a final product.

At the end of the day, a BlackBerry is a work horse for sorting documents, answering emails, taking calls, social media, and mobile tasks for running a department or business. If you require the use of more demanding apps and tasks like editing photos or constant social media, we'd recommend you look for something with a more capable CPU.