Remember for how much the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone was launched in India? Incase you don’t remember it was roughly around 44k and now BlackBerry India has cut down the price to Rs. 29,990 for a limited period of time. That’s right BlackBerry Z10 is now available for Rs. 29,990 as a result of some festiveal offer which as claimed by the Managing Director.
After launching BB10 and three of its devices in Q1 2013 BlackBerry has not been able to do much of the profits. During the Q1 earnings call, BlackBerry announced that they shall launch a BB OS 7.1 handset very soon and on 13th August 2013 we have it announced.
BlackBerry the king of qwerty handsets today on 16th July 2013 launched their latest entrant to the BlackBerry 10 smartphone series and the budget friendly – BlackBerry Q5 at an event in New Delhi. Q5 is the cheapest BB10 running handset available out there which provides an awesome qwerty experience as is the best alternative to Q10, company’s high profile smartphone.
BlackBerry Q5 features an awesome qwerty keyboard which provides one of the best typing experience with an youthful design. It also has a 3.1 inches touchscreen display which makes it for the BB10 gestures and provide best of both worlds in one device. BlackBerry Q5 comes with the BlackBerry 10.1 software upgrade pre-installed with all the BB10 features like Time Shift, BlackBerry Hub, Story Maker, BBM and the other 120,000 applications from the BlackBerry World which shall be compatible with the Q5 as well.
BlackBerry aims this model especially to the youth who want BBM, qwerty keyboard with some really cool colors. Q5 will be available in Pure Black, Pure White and Pure Red color options for 24,990 from authorized retailers in India from 20th July 2013.
After Z10 and the Q10 and their highly incorrect pricing, we think though BlackBerry managed to go down but still Q5 is pricey. Something kind of 9220 here could have done the magic but sigh they lost it once again. BlackBerry Q5 no doubt is a good smartphone which even though being at the lower end feels premium but 25k for this hardware and software combo is too vague for targeting the youth. At a similar price point, we can have some top notch Android smartphones which could be a better value for money for example even today S3 not to forget which was smartphone of the year 2012 comes for about this much price can be a better deal.
In the same price window we can get Huawei Ascend Mate the 6.1 inch Android running phablet with powerful specification packed inside for 25 grands to combine performance, design and size if one is looking for such handsets. Other than this we have the Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8 for ₹23,699 or the Nokia Lumia 820 for 21k running the Windows Phone 8.
Canadian smartphone maker – BlackBerry launched the much awaited QWERTY smartphone Q10 in India today. BlackBerry Q10 is priced at Rs 44,990, almost Rs 2,000 more than its touch screen sibling Z10 which is currently selling for Rs 42,490. The price of the new phone seems too exorbitant in a price-sensitive market like India, but the recently launched EMI scheme by the company is sure to come in handy for thrift buyers.
Online shopping mart Saholic has already begun selling the QWERTY phone for Rs 44,999 with a free gift voucher worth Rs 1000. The smartphone is expected to be zvailable in retail stores from Friday, June 7, 2013 in major cities across India. Alongside India, BlackBerry Q10 will also set foot in the US market today.
BlackBerry Q10 sports a 3.1-inch super AMOLED touchscreen. It also comes with a physical QWERTY keyboard, which has been associated with BlackBerry devices since the company started offering smartphones. There is an 8-megapixel rear camera on-board and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4G and NFC. BlackBerry Q10 also packs in 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage and a 2,100mAh battery.
According to a report by Wall Street Journal, the Q10 with a price of Rs 44,999 is the company’s second costliest smartphone after Porsche P9981 priced at Rs 1,39,000. The report notes that the buyers may find its difficult to purchase the Q10 as per analysts. The arrival of Q10 comes on the heels of Nexus 4 and Panasonic P51 launch and, also Lenovo has announced six new smartphones on Wednesday. Hence, there is a lot for BlackBerry to fight with in India.
It is noted that in order to compete with heavyweights like Samsung, BlackBerry needs to have a wide variety of inexpensive handsets to attract buyers rather than launching only expensive devices.
It looks like after Apple and Samsung now other brands are also following the same step of selling their high end smartphones in India. The goal of this schemes is to reach to the middle class family of India. So one can buy a high end smartphone without any Burdon on his pocket . This time BlackBerry comes out with EMI scheme on its high end phones Z10 and entry level smartphone curve 9220. One need a credit card to buy these phones. This scheme is only available on selected banks like Axis Bank, Citibank, HDFC bank, HSBC, ICICI Bank, Kotak, State Bank of India, and Standard Chartered bank. And according to the company these plans will be rolled out in 3000 BlackBerry outlets across the country by this weekend.
Blackberry has not really managed to garner the attention in the positive manner of the critics as well as customers when it has come to pricing frontier of the latest Blackberry 10 running device, Blackberry Z10. The Canadian company is planning to add more more devices to the BB10 running devices and the Q10 will be launched in April 2013 which will be priced pretty steeply as well. But there’s something for the ones on a budget as well.
A new device has cropped up which will be running on the BB10 and will be named as R10. It will sit as a top of the line Curve device. Or else Blackberry might just introduce an all new series like the Z and Q which will be named as the R series, thus the device being named as R10. It will come with a price tag of around $400 which converts into a figure of roughly Rs.22,000 in Indian currency and will offer a similar experience as its dearer siblings.
Blackberry Z10 was just launched in the country and along with it, the people started wondering as to when will its sibling, the Q10 join the ranks. The Q10 runs on Blackberry 10 like its sibling but comes with a 3.1 inch touchscreen and a qwerty keyboard as well. Qwerty keyboards have been the strength of Blackberry and the Q10 will hit the Indian brick and mortar stores this April. The Indian launch will come at the time of the global launch so that speaks volumes about the company’s intentions for India.
At the launch event of the Blackberry Z10 in Mumbai, Sunil Dutt, BlackBerry India’s managing director stated that the Q10 will be launched in India by April and will join the Z10. Along with these two high end smartphones, Blackberry will also launch a host of Blackberry 7 OS running devices to cater to the lower ends of the smartphone market. On the other hand, the Blackberry 10 OS powered smartphones will be locking horns with Android, iOS and Windows Phone flagships.
