Once the king of the mobile email, BlackBerry is trying to make itself heard once again, and while it reinvented its smartphones for a new generation earlier in the year, it’s time to show it can have a bigger phone, too.
Big phones are all the rage at the moment, hardly surprising as the world moves more towards using smartphones for surfing the web, devouring information through both video and text, and wanting as big a display to see it as comfortable as possible.
BlackBerry’s handsets for 2013 may have reinvented the brand’s status as a modern smartphone provider, complete with a new operating system, but it didn’t bring that big a screen size, with a 4.2 inch on the all-touch Z10 and a 3.1 inch on the combined QWERTY-keypad and touchscreen-based device.
As we start to head into the final months of 2013, BlackBerry will be releasing a new all-touch device, coming in the form of the Z30.
This mobile will deliver BlackBerry 10 OS to a 5 inch screen running HD’s 1280×720, and run movies, games, websites, and more on a dual-core 1.7GHz processor provided by Qualcomm. We’re told 2GB RAM is running in this phone, as well as 16GB storage, with room to move if you add a microSD.
Support for next-generation networks will also be here, making it 4G compatible, with other wireless standards such as Bluetooth 4.0, Near-Field Communication, GPS, and 802.11 a/b/g/n also present in this handset.
We’ve mentioned before that bigger phones often mean bigger batteries can be packed in, and that’s something BlackBerry is focusing on, including a 2880mAh, which is much bigger than the 1800mAh in the BlackBerry Z10.
“The new BlackBerry Z30 smartphone builds on the solid foundation and engaging user experience of the BlackBerry 10 platform with features like the powerful BlackBerry Hub, its exceptional touchscreen keyboard and industry leading browser,” said Carlo Chiarello, Executive Vice President for Products at BlackBerry.
BlackBerry’s Z30 will be hitting stores and telcos later in the year, with pricing to be unveiled closer to release.
Meanwhile, those people who know others with a BlackBerry but don’t necessarily want to grab one themselves will find a new way to connect, with BlackBerry also unveiling its Messenger system known affectionately as “BBM” or “BlackBerry Messenger” for iOS and Android.
Rolling out over September 21 and 22, BBM for the other platforms will make it possible to talk to people already using the service, including status updates, photos, and group chats with up to 30 friends.
“BBM is a very engaging messaging service that is simple to use, easy to personalise and has an immediacy that is necessary for mobile communications,” said BlackBerry’s Andrew Bocking, Executive Vice President for BBM.
“With more than a billion Android, iOS, and BlackBerry smartphones in the market, and no dominant mobile messaging platform, this is absolutely the right time to bring BBM to Android and iPhone customers.”
We’re checking to see how far away a Windows Phone version is, but iOS and Android users with version 4.0 and above will be able to grab these apps and login as early as next week.
