Hasta La Gadget!

After months of rumors, speculation and official teases, RIM’s BlackBerry’s first full-touch BlackBerry 10 device — the Z10 — is finally official. Look familiar? It should. Thanks to an incessant stream of leaks, the handset you see in black and white above had become something of an open secret. But now we can confirm that candybar slab does indeed pack specs quite similar to that of the Dev Alpha unit that preceded it.

Bucking the bigger is better trend we’ve seen in the mobile industry as of late, the Z10 comes outfitted with a palm-friendly 4.2-inch 1,280 x 768 display — amounting to a pixel density of 356 dpi — and measures in at 5.13 (130mm) x 2.6 (66mm) x 0.37 (9.3mm) inches, making it significantly bulkier than, say, the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III. So, it’s not the thinnest device we’ve seen as of late, but at 138 grams, the Z10 certainly won’t be weighing down your hand. Beneath its mixture of aluminum and hard, textured plastic lies a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus buffered by 2GB RAM, a removable 1,800mAh battery, slots for microSD (up to 32GB supported) and micro SIM, as well as radios for Bluetooth 4.0, NFC (integrated into the backplate) and WiFi a/b/g/n.

Because no 2013-era smartphone launch could go without it, the Z10 will ship LTE-ready for AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, with carrier-branded models across the top four US operators. Long time BlackBerry fans will be glad to note that the Z10 does, indeed, sport that familiar red notification LED, in addition to ports for micro-USB, micro-HDMI and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the imaging front, the handset packs a 2-megapixel front facer (720p video) and 8-megapixel rear shooter capable of 1080p recording — both perfect for using Sclalado’s Time Shift camera software. Of course, it nearly goes without saying that the Z10 is RIM’s showcase entry point for its BB 10 OS. Verizon is the first to confirm that it’ll charge $199.99 for the handset on a two-year deal when the hardware arrives in March, and has also called shotgun on the white version as exclusive to Big Red.

You can read along at our liveblog!

Daniel Cooper contributed to this report.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, RIM

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If you found yourself on the wrong network for Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Stellar smartphone, consider this: The Galaxy Victory. This little slab was leaked to Android Central recently, sporting similar specs to Verizon’s upcoming budget device. Like its cousin, the Victory appears to have a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a TouchWiz flavored serving of Ice Cream Sandwich and a 4-inch 800 x 480 display — but it sets itself apart with a five-megapixel rear facing camera and quad-band GSM support. The handset also plays nice with Samsung’s TecTiles accessory, as well as Google Wallet, Beam and other NFC standards. An internal employee promotion from Sprint pegs the device for a September release, but makes no mention of price or specific availability.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Samsung Galaxy Victory 4G LTE surfaces for Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Sep 2012 20:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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