By now you've most likely become familiar with the basics - swipe to pan through the screens, select word suggestions from the keyboard, take a photo - but are you really getting the most out of your BlackBerry Z10? Read on to learn 5 tips and tricks that will help you to master your device. Let's get started!

  1. Manage the BlackBerry Hub

    The Hub is the core of the BlackBerry 10 platform and having the ability to easily manage all of your notifications in one central place is an absolute dream.

    Customize your Hub by filtering which accounts you want to be shown. Prefer not to see your work emails over the weekend? No problem.

    • Open your Hub
    • Tap the Menu icon in the bottom right corner and choose Settings
    • Select Hub Management from the Settings screen
    • Choose which accounts you want to disable by sliding the toggle to Off

    Organize your notifications by assigning a specific colour to each of your accounts. This helps to further organize your Hub and makes it much easier to tell which account has received a message.

    • Open your Hub
    • Tap the Menu icon in the bottom right corner and choose Settings
    • Select Email Accounts and choose an account
    • Tap your colour of choice from the Account Colour drop down list

    Refresh the Hub when your notifications don't seem to be loading properly.

    • Open your Hub
    • Tap the Menu icon in the bottom right corner and choose Settings
    • Swipe from the top right hand corner downwards in a diagonal fashion 5 times
    • Hub should then restart

  2. Enable the Music Shortcuts

    Did you know that you can control your music with the up and down volume keys? By enabling the music shortcuts on your device, it becomes the perfect media player for when you're on the go. All you have to do is press and hold the volume up key to skip forward, and the volume down key to skip backward.You can control the volume of your audio by using the volume slider on the screen.

    • Swipe down from the top of your screen and tap Settings
    • Select System Volume
    • Slide the Music Shortcuts toggle to On

  3. Take a Screenshot

    Capturing your screen in real time is quick and easy! Simply hold down both top and bottom volume keys until you hear a camera click and your screenshot will be saved to your Camera folder.

  4. Take a Photo using TimeShift

    By capturing the before, during and after - this revolutionary camera mode lets you capture several photos at once so that you can choose the perfect “version”.

    • Open your Camera
    • Tap the camera icon in the top right corner
    • Tap the TimeShift icon
    • Snap your photo
    • Move through the timescale amd choose the best "version" of the photo
    • Save the image by tapping the check icon in the top right corner

  5. Swipe Gestures

    Without any physical home and navigation buttons, the BlackBerry Z10 relies solely on swipe gestures.

    • Wake up your device at anytime by swiping upwards from the bottom of the screen.
    • In your Calendar, pinch and slide fingers apart to zoom out and see a more general time frame or pinch and slide fingers together to zoom in on a particular date.
    • Switch between the Text, Numbers and Symbols keyboards by using one finger to swipe down from the top of keyboard.
    • Peek at your notifications from anywhere at anytime by simply swiping up from the bottom of the screen and holding.
    • Open the BlackBerry Hub by swiping up and to the right in one motion.
    • Minimize an application by swiping from the bottom up and releasing which will minimize the app into the Active Frames screen. You can then return to this screen to reopen the app or tap the X in the lower right corner to close it.
    • Access the systems setting menu at anytime by swiping down from the top of the screen.
    • To move around an application, simply touch and hold the icon you want to move and wait for it to vibrate, and then slide your finger to wherever you would like it to go.

Do you have any specific questions about the Z10 or another device? Ask us on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus!


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