Tuesday, February 25, 2014

MWC 2014: BlackBerry makes all-touch Z3, full QWERTY Q20 smartphones official

Blackberry’s latest (final?) attempt at a comeback starts at 2014’s Mobile World Congress, where John Chen, the company’s Executive Chairman and CEO, has taken the wraps off two new low-cost, mid-range smartphones.




The fruits of BlackBerry’s collaboration with Foxconn are at last visible in Barcelona, as the Z3, internally codenamed “Jakarta”, is being showcased as we speak to MWC attendees. Designed primarily for the Indonesian market (pretty specific, eh?), the touchscreen-toting 5-inch handheld is due for a commercial release around those parts in April.

The exact price tag continues to be kept under wraps, but right off the bat we knew BB intended to roll it out for $200 tops, and now that tidbit is official. Soooo, $199? Probably.

Running BlackBerry 10.2.1 OS, the Z3 is fairly easy to hate, based on recent BB flops and an underprivileged ecosystem, yet strictly from a price-hardware quality ratio standpoint, the 5-incher is quite impressive.

Granted, its spacious display sports sub-par qHD resolution (960 x 540 pixels), but the dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 400 chip and 1.5 GB of RAM should ensure smooth sailing in everything from browsing to gaming to multimedia playing.



8 GB on-board storage? Not bad, as long as there’s room for microSD cards. 5 and 1.1 MP cameras? They don’t sound sizzling hot, but at $200 or less, the mere presence of a front snapper is good news. Headed to Indonesia with 3G connectivity only, the BlackBerry Z3 might spread its wings “sometime in the future” in a 4G LTE-enabled flavor, so all in all, if BB gets a move on, this 5-incher could actually sell.

Meanwhile, the Q20, the other new device unveiled at MWC (or rather teased), is a lot more secretive, leaving plenty to the imagination.

Basically, we just know it’s a “full classic QWERTY” phone, with function keys and a classic trackpad, as well as a “generous” 3.5-inch touchscreen, “the best battery life possible”, and “premium” build quality. Oh, yes, and it’s only set to come out in the second half of 2014, so don’t even think about asking pricing questions.

Sources: BlackBerry Blog (1), (2) , GSM Arena



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