You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 7 days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
BlackBerry’s new all-touch Z10 may have only been announced a little over a week ago, but some intrepid nerds have already torn the phone to shreds. And inside? It looks a lot like a Samsung. More »
BlackBerry Z10 devices have only been out in the wild for roughly a week, but the folks at UBM TechInsights have already forced one of the handset’s open to figure out just what parts make it tick. Prying the device apart revealed the expected Snapdragon S4 Plus and three other parts from Qualcomm accompanied by Samsung-made RAM and storage. What stands out most to the dismantlers, however, is that the Z10 packs many of the same components in Samsung’s Galaxy family of devices, particularly those of the LTE-toting GS3. It’s not the most scrutinizing tear down, but you can hit the bordering source link for the entire parts list and full set of images.
Filed under: Mobile, Blackberry
Via: CrackBerry
Source: UBM TechInsights
We’re pretty sure you’ve heard of the BlackBerry Z10 by now, but have you heard of Solavei? Let us jog your memory: Solavei is a virtual operator (MVNO) here in the US which rides atop T-Mobile’s GSM / EDGE / UMTS / HSPA+ network and offers unlimited voice, SMS and data for $49 a month, contract free. The company further sweetens the deal with discounts when you sign up friends. As for the Z10, you probably know that it’s already on sale in the UK and Canada but isn’t supposed to land on US carriers until mid-March. Well scratch that, because starting today Solavei is teaming up with GSM Nation to bring Blackberry’s flagship to its customers. We’ve confirmed with Solavei that pricing for the handset is a hefty $999 (unsubsidized, clearly). The company currently offers the ATIV S for $605, the Galaxy S III for $575, the Nexus 4 for $405 and the Ascend P1 for $391, to name a few. It also welcomes unlocked phones. Full PR after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry
Source: Solavei
T-Mobile says that BlackBerry’s new Z10 smartphone is “more stable than … anticipated,” and could potentially get a faster-than-expected launch on the network. As it stands, the new BB10-based smartphone looks to be on track for a mid-March release, according to statements made by T-Mobile USA Head of Business Sales Frank Sickinger speaking to Bloomberg today. The company anticipates it could be the first U.S. carrier “out of the gate” with BB10 as a result, according to the report.
Anticipated launch dates for the BlackBerry Z10 in the U.S. had pointed to a March 27 launch on T-Mobile, according to a leaked roadmap published by TmoNews earlier this week. While that date may have originally been accurate based on the carrier’s assumption of how long the Z10 would take to clear testing, Sickinger’s words today suggest that the timeframe has been pushed up.
The Z10 is already out and available in the Canadian and U.K. markets, and BlackBerry has been issuing reports of early sales success in both countries. The launch in Canada on Rogers is reported to have seen initial sales numbering in the “thousands,” making for a record launch day for a single BlackBerry device, and in the U.K. many outlets report being sold out. That said, BlackBerry still isn’t releasing any specific sales numbers, which casts some doubt on how successful sales have actually been, in relative terms compared to the larger smartphone industry.
The Z10 will retail on T-Mobile for $199 with a new two-year agreement, and will be offered to business customers ahead of its consumer launch, with about a week’s worth of lead time. If T-Mobile can get the Z10 in customer hands a bit faster than its competition, that might help it win over some more business customers to its cause. But this could just spur other carriers to try to speed up their own testing processes, which should please the eager U.S.-based BB-heads out there.
The launch of the Z10 is a critical moment for BlackBerry, a bellwether for whether it’s truly on the road to recovery. It’s good news, then, that early British and Canadian sales are reportedly far healthier than what the crew in Waterloo has seen in the past. CEO Thorsten Heins says that the Canadian launch on the 5th saw sales 50 percent better than any previous BlackBerry launch in the country, a rather important metric when it’s the company’s homeland. In terms of sheer growth, though, the UK reigns — first-week sales in the nation were nearly three times those of any previous BlackBerry release in the area. These are relative figures when BlackBerry had to spend much of 2012 without new flagship devices, and there’s no definitive numbers, but they’re encouraging for a company that’s had trouble getting traction as of late. Read the full statement after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry
When BlackBerry unveiled its new BB10 line of devices and mobile OS, the company showed off both the Z10 and Q10 smartphones. The Z10 was released shortly after the announcement in many markets (the next day in the U.K., this week in Canada) and will hit the U.S. in March, but the Q10 with its hardware QWERTY keyboard was said to be hitting markets beginning in April. The key word there was “beginning,” however, as in a follow-up interview BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins reveals Americans likely won’t get the device until May or June.
Heins told the Associated Press in an interview (via AllThingsD) that the Q10 is likely to arrive in the U.S. some eight to ten weeks after the Z10 hits the U.S., which is supposed to happen around mid-March. That means it will be until May or even June before U.S. customers are able to buy the Q10, some simple math tells us.
The delay isn’t all that surprising. The Z10 is also arriving stateside later than it is coming to other markets, something Heins attributed to the extensive carrier testing required to get it approved for use on major networks in the U.S. from AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. The same thing is to be expected for the Q10, with perhaps a bit of a shorter testing period required since it’s running BB10, which the carriers are seeing in final shipping form for the first time with the Z10′s round of testing.
The delay isn’t great for BlackBerry, which would no doubt like to have the QWERTY handset out as soon as possible, after giving the Z10 a chance to find a foothold with consumers. The Q10 remains among the last real hardware keyboard smartphones, and it’ll be interesting to see how BlackBerry blends that control mechanism with BB10′s largely gesture based navigation interface, and how that combination works for consumers.
The phone that could unexpectedly become BlackBerry’s saviour, the Q10, won’t hit US shores until May—at the earliest—according to CEO Thorsten Heins. More »
I’ve never been a BlackBerry user. But I’ve seriously considered one at a few points over the years, and I’ve been genuinely curious to see how the first BlackBerry 10 device fares. Last week’s launch event didn’t sell me on one, but I’m still curious to try it. Unfortunately for BlackBerry, née RIM, the event also served to again highlight some of the problems that have plagued the company in recent years.
You’ll get different opinions about when those problems really started, but you can directly trace last week’s launch event back to one date almost three years ago: April 9th, 2010. That’s when RIM announced it was buying QNX Software Systems, the company whose operating system would ultimately provide the basis for BlackBerry 10 (and the PlayBook before it). At the time, the acquisition didn’t signal a massive shift for RIM — it mostly talked up things like in-car infotainment systems and “intelligent peripherals.”
Filed under: Mobile, Blackberry
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