The old Research in Motion (RIM) smartphone company out of Canada has changed their name to BlackBerry. If that sounds familiar, that is the name of the smartphone lineup that the old RIM, and newly named BlackBerry, is associated with. The BlackBerry 10 operating system will be launching on the brand-new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone this year on AT&T in the US. And the switch from the familiar RIM name to simply designating the company by its iconic smartphone tells us all we need to know about the direction of that company in the future.
At the recent press conference where they revealed all there is to know about the upcoming BlackBerry Z10, company executives made it clear they were going straight for Apple and Samsung with their new handset. And the phone does look more like an iPhone or Android phone than past iterations of the BlackBerry. While the BlackBerry Q10 will deliver a physical QWERTY keyboard as past handsets have done for the company, the Z10 is the real game changer. Employing virtual keyboards and features which are more current and timely, BlackBerry is betting their future on the Z10.
And smartphone wireless carrier AT&T is in the company’s corner. Both the Q10 and Z10 will debut on that network, and rumors have it that the official announcement of retail price and launch date will come at the upcoming Mobile World Conference (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain at the end of February. This will be the first BlackBerry to run on AT&T’s 4G LTE network, with the new Z10 seriously upping the ante from previous models in performance, arriving with a super slim 0.35 inch (9.0 mm) profile, weighing 4.5 ounces (130 g).
The handset also delivers a large 4.2 inch display with impressive 356 ppi pixel density, giving that capacitive, multitouch screen an overall resolution of 768 x 1,280 pixels. Talk time is approximately 25% better than the 4G smartphone average, with 10.0 hours of talk time and 13.0 days of battery standby power offered from a single charge. A dual core 1.5 GHz CPU and 2.0 GB of RAM system memory is on board, as is 16 GB of built-in data storage space.
The handset will also include a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus MSM8960 microchip package with Adreno 225 GPU, and a microSD slot for storage expansion. An 8.0 megapixel camcorder joins a 2.0 megapixel chat cam in the handset’s camera combo, and the upcoming BlackBerry Z10 will be capable of recording video in 1,080P HD resolution, delivering NFC wireless support out-of-the-box.
February 10, 2013 at 9:14 am
The miracle that the BlackBerry still exists cannot be refuted; Thorsten Heins did not exude the Jobs charisma we ALL thought essential to rally troops as he sent the other half home. Some Germanic black arts seem to have prevailed as today we all speculate that RIM (oops BBRY) can still be a player.
I doubt it. They offer a single product, not even diversified by sales of their Playbook tablet. In a rapidly maturing market, where a decade equals prior technology back to Newton, size and revenue diversity do matter.
Apple will ultimately ripen and fall, but currently it is sweetened on the branch by revenues from Mac’s and iTunes. Samsung are a Chaebol whose tentacles are elusive but all encompassing in Korean society. They are currently at the top of their game and, feeding Apple an estimated $8B of iPhone components …. well … by the b***s comes to mind.
The list continues, but cutting to the chase, I see BB10 simply as the haute couture which renders Ms BlakBerry (nee RIMM) eligible for a =n attractive dowry. Let’s hope that the lucky suitor, be he an Asian potentate or possibly Bezos, the Prince of all Amazons …… do not expect a big wedding present.