BlackBerry, the device maker formerly known as Research In Motion, may have bought itself time in the smartphone market with revamped handsets and software, based on the earliest reviews of the new wares.

“Well, BlackBerry’s Hail Mary pass, its bet-the-farm phone, is finally here. It’s the BlackBerry Z10, and guess what? It’s lovely, fast and efficient, bristling with fresh, useful ideas,” wrote David Pogue in Thew New York Times.

And here’s the shocker — it’s complete. The iPhone, Android and Windows Phone all entered life missing important features. Not this one; BlackBerry couldn’t risk building a lifeboat with leaks. So it’s all here: a well-stocked app store, a music and movie store, Mac and Windows software for loading files, speech recognition, turn-by-turn navigation, parental controls, copy and paste, Find My Phone (with remote-control lock and erase) and on and on.

Z10, a phone that boasts a touch screen and the new BB10 operating system, has enough going for it to draw interest, though it’s not the kind of product that will quickly help BlackBerry win back ground lost to Apple Inc. and Google Inc., maker of the Android software used by Samsung Electronics Co., according to Ed Baig, who reviews gadgets for USA Today.

“It’s very much good enough to keep RIM in the game, but is still not very likely to help the company supplant the iPhone 5 or the Android-based Samsung Galaxy S III, or help the company recapture its past glory,” Baig wrote after testing the smartphone for about a week.

The Z10 drew plaudits for camera and virtual keyboard design from the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, who also called it a “work in progress” that lacks apps and a cloud- based system for sharing files.

However, Mossberg likes the new keyboard.

“The Z10 keyboard is the best and fastest out-of-the-box virtual keyboard I’ve used,” the technology veteran and widely recognized reviewer, wrote. “Master BlackBerry thumb typists might not find it as fast as the traditional physical keyboard, but, for a one-finger typist like me, it was faster and more accurate than either the native keyboards on the iPhone or Android.”

Bloomberg’s Rich Jaroslovsky said Z10 is “handsome, intuitive to use and a whiz at multitasking” and that it resembles an iPhone 5 at first glance — though distinctions include a bigger screen.

Some of the most glowing praise came from the Tinmes’ Pogue, who was impressed by Z10’s sharp display; its app, music and video stores; and a master in-box that groups all communications channels, including calls and messages from Twitter and Facebook.

“Some of BlackBerry 10’s ideas are truly ingenious,” he wrote. “A subtle light blinks above the screen to indicate that something — a text, an e-mail message, voice mail, a Facebook post — is waiting for you. Without even pressing a physical button, you swipe up the screen; the Lock screen lifts like a drape as you slide your thumb, revealing what’s underneath. It’s fast and cool.”

Added Mossberg: “The Z10 is basically a chunky plastic slab, midway in size and weight between the tall, slim iPhone 5 and the bigger, wider crop of new Android models. I found it felt good in the hand. Its high-resolution 4.2-inch screen is a bit bigger than the iPhone’s 4-inch display, though much smaller than many newer Android screens, which are creeping toward 5 inches.”

‘Fast, Efficient’

“It’s lovely, fast and efficient, bristling with fresh, useful ideas,” Pogue wrote. “And here’s the shocker — it’s complete.”
The Z10 is scheduled to reach stores in March in the U.S., selling for a projected $199. It starts at C$149 ($149) in BlackBerry’s home country of Canada, where it goes on sale Feb. 5.

The release marks a make-or-break shift for the company, which has seen its market share fall to a quarter of what it was three years ago. BlackBerry is counting on BlackBerry 10 to reverse that slide and return to profitability. The stock dropped as much as 9.1 percent after today’s unveiling, signaling that investors remain skeptical.

Die-hard BlackBerry fans may balk at Z10’s lack of a physical keyboard, while iPhone and Android users may “shun it for its small selection of apps and lack of native cloud services,” Mossberg wrote.

The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky was disappointed by apps performance.

“The Android apps I tested while using the Z10 performed abysmally on the phone,” he wrote. “Sluggish, ugly, and disconnected from the core OS. In fact, because these apps are being run in a software emulation of Android — Gingerbread no less (that’s version 2.3) — they bear little to no relationship to the rest of the operating system.”

The new operating system is better looking than previous BlackBerry software, according to Jaroslovsky. It’s unclear whether customers will make the switch to the Z10, he said.

“The key question, which the market will answer, is whether all that will be enough to rescue the company after years of mediocre products and corporate floundering,” he said.