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“Why should I care?”
“我为什么要在乎它？”
That’s the phrase I uttered to myself when I first unboxed BlackBerry’s latest smartphone, the Passport.
这是我第一次打开黑莓最新智能手机Passport的包装盒时的自言自语。
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?
我为什么要在乎Passport古怪的4.5寸正方形屏幕？我为什么要在乎它“名副其实”的尺寸和外形（它的大小和形状都和一本护照差不多）？我为什么要在乎这部手机上预置了亚马逊的应用商店？
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，请原谅一下我的怀疑主义情绪。要说Passport手机值得喜爱的地方还是很多的。它是新CEO程守宗去年11月上任以来黑莓发布的首款产品。为了将这家风雨飘摇的公司扭亏为赢，程守宗表示，他希望让黑莓重新扎住它在企业界的“根”，提供主要面向企业界的设备与服务。
A travel document-shaped phone fit for business travel? Sure. Why not?
一本长得像护照的手机真的适合商务旅行吗？当然。为什么不呢？
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奇异的外形无疑为黑莓拉来了一些人气。黑莓将Passport定位为面向商务人士的终极生产力工具。如果你觉得这种定位口号耳熟的话，那是因为它之前也这样干过：近几年来，每次有重大的产品发布，黑莓都会推出以商务为主题的宣传语。这家公司给人的感觉就像在说：“请原谅我们推出了粉色的黑莓Pearl Flip手机”，或“这个手机不能玩《飞扬的小鸟》(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.
实际上，Passport的正方形屏幕的确可以显示更多信息，而不必像传统比例的手机一样需要横放屏幕。我认为这款屏幕的质量也毫不逊色于苹果的iPhone和市面上的大多数高端安卓设备。
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.)
你知道吗？Passport的屏幕虽然是正方形的，但我却开始喜欢这种比例了。在测试中，我越来越喜欢它更宽广的视角，同时它也没有数字键盘的阻挡——不过如果黑莓牺牲一定的屏幕空间，换成经典尺寸的黑莓式键盘，我想我也会欣然接受。
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.
我也开始欣赏起黑莓在10.3系统中推出的BlackBerry Blend功能。你可不要顾名思义，以为它是一种饮料。它是黑莓最新推出的一项服务，可以让你通过台式电脑等设备访问你的手机中的内容与信息，哪怕你把手机忘在家里、车里或办公室的桌子里都不成问题。虽然初次连接有点小麻烦，但后来我就频繁地通过苹果的Mac台式电脑和iPad连接Passport手机了。
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.
至于键盘：它与其它黑莓设备的实体键盘区别不大。Passport的键盘只有三排（而经典的黑莓键盘则有四排）。最底下的一排被空格键分开。一般位于空格键两侧的Shift和符号键则以数字形式存在于屏幕上。
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.
像大多数人一样，我在我自己的手机上用的也是虚拟键盘，我发现要重新适应实体键盘还有点麻烦。尤其是评测的第一天，我差不多是盲目地按着那些按键，试图拼出连贯的句子。（幸运的是，尽管使用了实体键盘，但黑莓10依然有拼写纠错功能。）随着时间的推移，这种痛苦感慢慢变淡了。不过我仍然不确定用惯了经典黑莓键盘的人是否会为Passport的键盘唱赞歌。
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的键盘还有另一层功能——它还是一个隐蔽的触控板。如果你用手指扫过键盘，它就能实现翻页、邮件和删除文字功能。双击还可以激活文本选择工具来精确地编辑一个文档。
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.
在你发现这项功能的一刹那，感觉还是挺新奇的——但这种新奇感很快就消退了。那么大一块触屏不去使用，反而把键盘当触控板，这种感觉还挺尴尬的。另外在我打字的时候，文本选择工具经常被激活，导致光标的位置都变了，因此我输入的文字错了位，让人很沮丧。
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.
我也希望爱上Passport触控式实体键盘的卓而不群，但最终却并没有找到我苦苦寻找的惊喜。
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.
在测试结束时，我放下了Passport，但我却并不觉得悲伤。这款设备大胆地独辟蹊径，让我很难不对它表示尊敬，另外这款手机显然还是有属于它的小众市场。不过对于那些仍然抱着老款设备的黑莓用户来说，Passport或许不是你心目中的那台黑莓。对于已经投奔其它平台的用户来说，恐怕他们也很难转投回来。
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.
那么我们为什么要在乎Passport呢？在花了不少时间评测这台设备后，我对这个问题仍然没有很好的答案。我知道现在有很多人谈论这款设备，顺便也谈到它的制造商黑莓。现在想来，或许这正是原因所在。
