Research In Motion (RIMM) is largely responsible for shaping the modern smartphone, but the company rested on its laurels and sat still while the rest of the industry underwent a major shift. The result is the debacle RIM faces. The future of the company now rests squarely on RIM’s next-generation BlackBerry 10
platform, and the world will now get its first official glimpse at the
two new smartphones that mark the start of RIM’s comeback attempt. We
already know plenty about the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry X10 smartphones thanks to a series of leaks, but today we’ll hear all the
key details surrounding these two phones straight from the horse’s
mouth. We should also find out preliminary launch details during today’s
event, as well as with some details about RIM’s sales and marketing
strategies.
The BlackBerry Z10 is the more consumer focused of the two BlackBerry
10 handsets, featuring a 4.2-inch touchscreen with a 1280 x 768 HD
display and a pretty impressive pixels per inch count of 356 (the iPhone
5 has a 326 ppi count).
It's powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core
processor and there is 16GB of storage space included (and you can
upgrade this with microSD). The camera setup is top-notch too - there's
an 8-megapixel snapper around the back for taking pictures on the go,
and there's a front facing 2-megapixel camera too for video calling.
The BlackBerry Q10
is the more traditional-looking BlackBerry device, with a full physical
QWERTY keyboard to sit alongside its 3.1-inch touchscreen display. The
spec-sheet for the Q10, although unconfirmed officially, is on a par
with its Z10 brethren.
BlackBerry 10, the new operating system
that sits atop the new smartphones, is the Canadian company's latest
attempt at catching up with Google's Android and Apple's iOS. It drops
the traditional home button (and indeed homescreen), instead favouring a
gesture-based control setup.
It
offers a number of new features including the BlackBerry Hub - a one
stop shop for all your communications and social networks such as email,
calendar, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, BlackBerry Flow, which is a
new control setup that lets you flick between different apps with a
quick swipe and BlackBerry Peek, which lets you take a quick look at
open apps without completely overtaking the app that you're currently
on.
BlackBerry 10 taps into the recently revamped BlackBerry World
app store. At launch there are other 70,000 apps available including
high-profile apps like Skype, Amazon Kindle, Twitter, Angry Birds and
WhatsApp. There are also movies from all the major studios on offer and
music is available to download from all the top record labels.
To
put into perspective of just how bad things had become at RIM you only
need look at share prices. In 2008 an all-time high of $147 was achieved
- a far cry from the measly $6-mark it was stagnating around until
October of 2012. Only anticipation of the big BlackBerry 10 launch event
brought about a rise to a 52 week high share price of US$18.49.
You
may think the market share story makes for easier reading, but it
doesn't. According to Kantar market share research of the last 12 weeks
of 2011 and 2012 ending 27 November, RIM went from having a 16.9 per
cent share of the mobile pie in 2011 to just 6.5 per cent a year later.
In the US, the figure dropped from 7 per cent to 1.4 per cent. Wherever
you look, the decline is sizable.
So, can the BlackBerry Z10 and
the Blackberry X10 steady the ship for the newly named company? Only
time will tell - stay tuned to MSN Tech for our hands-on first
impressions and our comprehensive reviews.
BlackBerry has
confirmed that the Z10 will be available in the UK on 31 January - the
first country in the world to get the smartphone in shops. The new
BlackBerry Z10 will be available from Carphone Warehouse for free from
£36 per month on all major networks. On EE, the BlackBerry Z10 will be
able to tap into the 4G network.
The BlackBerry Q10 is expected to launch in April. No price details just yet.
Source :tech.uk.msn
