The BlackBerry Q10 will be available in the United States sometime in May, and BlackBerry has revealed the retail price: $249.99 with a two-year contract.
That's actually about $50 more expensive than the BlackBerry Z10, which is essentially the same phone but features an all-touch interface and a larger screen. The Q10 should appeal to BlackBerry traditionalists, with its full QWERTY keyboard, though it sacrifices screen space for it, as the keyboard is always accessible, not a slide-out like some Droid models.
Of course, of the major carriers, only Sprint, AT&T and Verizon offer contracts these days. It's likely T-Mobile will offer the Q10 for $99.99 upfront and $20 per month for two years without a contract, though there is precedent for a more expensive initial outlay; the Samsung Galaxy S4 costs $149.99 upfront.
BlackBerry's initially estimated it would sell three or four times as many Z10s and it will Q10s, but the wild popularity of the Z10 in multiple markets across the world could mean the hunger for BlackBerry smartphones hasn't been sated, and the Q10 could turn out to be much more popular than BlackBerry originally hoped.
Bloomberg suggests the high price, about $50 more than the iPhone, is a deliberate attempt to target business customers, many of whom won't care about a few extra dollars for the device, as long as it feel familiar in the hands of executives.
The BlackBerry Q10 features a 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 plus processor, 2GB of RAM, a 3.1-inch 720x720 touchscreen display, an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video, 16GB of internal storage, an SD card slot for up to another 64GB of storage, a full physical QWERTY keyboard and runs the newly revamped BlackBerry 10 operating system.
Check back for the latest information on the BlackBerry Q10 as it becomes available.
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