BlackBerry Reinvents Itself to Compete With All-Touch Smartphones:Wall Street Journal

[xytrius]

All major new agencies are reporting about the new BlackBerry phone. Excerpts from WSJ:

"There is a new smartphone coming to market, running on a new operating system. It's an all-touch device with no physical navigation controls and no physical keyboard, and serves as a platform for third-party apps. It's meant to compete in a world defined by Apple's iPhone and Google's Android phones. It's a BlackBerry, reinvented from the ground up.

This model, called the Z10, and its operating system, called BB10, are bet-the-company moves by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. RIM has seen its once-dominant position in the market shrivel away, especially in the U.S., since the iPhone appeared in 2007. It has tried a couple of times to drop its famous physical keyboards for touch screens, but those projects failed partly because the old BlackBerry operating system, designed to handle corporate email, was a poor platform for app developers.

...

Hardware:

The Z10 is basically a chunky plastic slab, midway in size and weight between the tall, slim iPhone 5 and the bigger, wider crop of new Android models. I found it felt good in the hand. Its high-resolution 4.2-inch screen is a bit bigger than the iPhone's 4-inch display, though much smaller than many newer Android screens, which are creeping toward 5 inches. The rear camera is the same 8 megapixels as on the iPhone and Android models like Google's flagship Nexus 4. It comes in black and white, and has only one memory configuration: 16 gigabytes (the base on the iPhone), but the memory can be expanded by up to 32 more gigabytes using a removable card. Unlike many phones today, it has a removable battery.

...

Bottom Line:

The Z10 and BB10 represent a radical reinvention of the BlackBerry. The hardware is decent and the user interface is logical and generally easy to use. I believe it has a chance of getting RIM back into the game, if the company can attract a lot more apps."

Source and full story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...nology_LEADTop

[kromosto]

number of operating systems of smart phones/tablets are getting very limited so i hope they succeed but don't have much hope.

[bearcatrp]

I used to be a BB user and miss the security it offered. Am planning on dumping my iphone for one. Think BB is just clearing there throats as things will get better as time evolves. No different than iPhone and android starting out. Takes time to shape it. Also good for competition. Just as long as it hits apple between the legs hard to bring them off there high horse.

[Rollo]

I used to be a BB user and miss the security it offered. Am planning on dumping my iphone for one. Think BB is just clearing there throats as things will get better as time evolves. No different than iPhone and android starting out. Takes time to shape it. Also good for competition. Just as long as it hits apple between the legs hard to bring them off there high horse.

Apple's market share is dwindling every quarter.

I tried to convince my son to get an iphone 5 this upgrade because I figured he wouldn't have to carry his ipod touch 4 and a phone at times, he would have none of it. Wanted the Galaxy SIII or DNA, got the GSIII.