Hasta La Gadget!

With all of the BlackBerry news coming your way today, it’s easy to forget about the BlackBerry Q10 and that it’s coming to Verizon and T-Mobile in the US later next month. Both carriers made the announcement today that the new QWERTY-equipped Q10 running BlackBerry 10 will arrive at Verizon and T-Mobile in June, although exact dates weren’t disclosed.

As for the Verizon version, customers will have their pick at either the black or white model, with the white version being a Verizon exclusive. The carrier hasn’t announced any pricing details yet for the new device, but it’s likely that the phone will sell for $250 after signing a two-year contract with Big Red.

As for T-Mobile, they also mentioned a generic June release window, and since the company recently got off the contract bandwagon, you’ll be paying full price for the BlackBerry Q10 on T-Mobile, with a $99 down payment with 24 monthly payments of $20 a piece. This means you’ll be paying $580 for the phone, but like with other pre-paid plans, there’s no contract to hold you down over two years.

As for pre-orders, Verizon said that customers will be able to reserve their own Q10 unit sometime “in the coming weeks.” T-Mobile has yet to announce any pre-order plans, but we’re guessing they’ll let customers get in on the fun early by purchasing a unit ahead of time.

It was rumored back in February that the Q10 wouldn’t launch until this month at the earliest, with June also being a possible release window, and it seems that the rumors were true. We haven’t heard anything from AT&T yet, but they’ve already confirmed that they’ll be offering the new device, so we’re guessing that Ma Bell will release the Q10 around the same time as the other carriers.

BlackBerry Q10 hitting Verizon and T-Mobile next month is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Our initial look at the BlackBerry R10 quickly suggested that the smartphone would be a budget alternative to the Q10, but it wasn’t clear just what we’d lose by penny-pinching. If DGtle is on the ball with its newly claimed specs, though, we won’t sacrifice as much as we thought. Along with offering more photos of the R10, the site believes that the handset will have the same 3.1-inch screen size and 2GB of RAM as its QWERTY sibling. Instead, the sacrifices would mostly affect media hounds: the R10 reportedly steps down to a 5-megapixel camera in addition to previously hinted cutbacks in storage (to 8GB) and battery (to 1,800mAh). We may learn the full truth soon enough — while there’s no guarantees anything will happen, next week’s BlackBerry Live conference is a prime opportunity for an unveiling.

Filed under: Cellphones, Blackberry

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Via: MobileSyrup, N4BB

Source: DGtle (translated)

This week the BlackBerry Q10 has been ushered in to the United States smartphone market with announcements from carriers across the board, starting with T-Mobile. As T-Mobile noted earlier today, they’ll be bringing pre-orders to the web starting on the 29th of April with business customers first up for in-hand action. This follows the strategy delivered with T-Mobile’s push for the BlackBerry Z10 earlier this year.

With the BlackBerry Q10, the company delivers its QWERTY smartphone experience for their full-fledged BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system launch. This device works with a display that’s a little over half the size of their Z10 model and offers a full physical keyboard in portrait mode.

The release of the BlackBerry Q10 will tend to traditional-style BlackBerry users as the original BlackBerry craze centered around physical keyboards and internet connectivity primarily. Though we’ve not yet seen a BlackBerry 10 device coming with a trackball between the display and the keyboard, we wouldn’t put it out of BlackBerry’s range of possibilities.

Have a peek at our timeline of BlackBerry Q10 bits and pieces below and get ready for the final launch of the Q10 for more than just business users. If what we’ve seen with the Z10 remains true of the Q10, this launch will be decent, if not simply satisfying for traditional BlackBerry fans.

BlackBerry Q10 appears in USA with T-Mobile, business first is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week a set of developers hoping to create a new way for users to use touchscreen-based keyboards have seem some significant success, finding 873% of their goal met in their first crowdfunded venture. The app environment these developers have presented is “Minuum Keyboard”, one created for Android devices initially, here showing off the entire English alphabet in a single row near the bottom of a smartphone or tablet screen. Having met their Indegogo goal several times over, they’re now headed for a June release for the software in beta.

In an interesting twist to the original goals set out by the group, this project’s development was advanced past it’s first Android confines with a WDK as well. A WDK, or Wearable Development Kit, provides the user with a keyboard for many prospective devices. In the video presentation made by the creators of this project, you’ll see this keyboard typing with 3D motion control too.

The setup for the keyboard in its initial layout comes from the QWERTY setup you’re likely making use of on your notebook, smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer right this minute. Taking these letters and smashing them down into what’s essentially one row instead of three, the space which the keyboard would otherwise have taken up is reduced significantly.

What these developers are studying and banking on is the idea that users will be able to adapt as easily as they have to the simplicity of the layout they’ve created. While like riding a bike, you can get used to typing with such a setup, there’s still a learning curve that’s being dealt with. According to the funds this team has received in support of their development thus far, there are more than enough people out there willing to give Minuum a shot!

Let us know if you’re working with the standard on-screen keyboard on your smartphone or tablet and why. Did you know you were able to change the keyboard on your device before you read this post?

[via Indegogo]

Minuum Android keyboard sparks crowdfund interest with one-row layout is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Official teasers rarely provide much in the way of detail, but this one from Nokia at least comes with a pretty picture. It reveals the rounded design language we have come to associate with the company’s latest feature phones, but with Z and Shift keys that imply we’re looking at a physical QWERTY handset rather than a candy bar — potentially something along the lines of the Asha 205. The picture is accompanied by a blog post confirming that this’ll be a product from Nokia’s Mobile Phones team rather than the folks behind Lumia, and that the announcement will happen at 7am GMT (3am ET) this Wednesday. The time zone is suggestive of an Asian or European launch, so it may or may not be worth setting your alarm clock.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia

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Source: Nokia