14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone users interested in the purchase of a QWERTY-enabled BlackBerry 10 smartphone won't have too long to wait until the first such device becomes available for purchase, it seems.
According to a recent report from Bloomberg, the Canadian mobile phone maker BlackBerry is set to bring the smartphone to shelves in its homeland market at the end of this month.
Canadian wireless carriers Rogers, Bell, and TELUS will make the smartphone available on their networks on May 1, priced at $199 CAD ($194 USD / 150 Euro) on a three-year contract.
Dubbed BlackBerry Q10, the device will be released on the networks of wireless carriers TELUS, Bell, and Rogers, as well as via other wireless services providers in the country, many of which have already announced their intent to release the device.
In the United States, however, the mobile phone will be released only next month, with wireless carriers such as AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon already confirming plans to add it to their offerings.
The news site also notes that the BlackBerry Q10 is expected to arrive in the United States priced at $249 (€191), which would make it $50 (€38) more expensive than the Apple iPhone.
Furthermore, the price tag would also make the Q10 pricier than the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone out there, the BlackBerry Z10, which has already landed on shelves in the United States and in a great deal of other markets around the world.
Made official in January, the BlackBerry Q10 packs a 3.1-inch touchscreen that can deliver a 720 x 720 pixels resolution, and is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 processor, paired with 2GB of RAM.
The specs list of this device also includes PowerVR SGX544 GPU, 16GB of internal memory, microSD memory card slot for expansion purposes, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS receiver, and the usual set of sensors.
Furthermore, it arrives on shelves with an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back, with full HD video recording capabilities, and with a 2MP front camera for making video calls.