14 DAY TRIAL // Initially launched in Indonesia, BlackBerry Z3 is now available for purchase in Malaysia, Philippines, India and a few other countries in Africa.
However, it looks like BlackBerry plans to launch the Z3 in additional regions. The next country that's supposed to receive the budget-friendly BlackBerry 10 smartphone is Singapore.
The device has been recently spotted on the IDA website (Infocomm Development Authority) by the folks over at Ourberries. Apparently, the handset has already been approved by the regulatory commission in this country and is ready for release.
Unfortunately, there are no details regarding the Z3's exact launch date and price tag in Singapore. Still, it's worth mentioning that BlackBerry Z3 is selling in other countries for around $215 (€160) outright, so there's no reason to see it priced higher in Singapore, especially that this is an emerging market, just like the other where the smartphone has been released until now.
The Z3 is not the cheapest BlackBerry 10 smartphone, but it surely offers one of the best price/features ratio. This has been made possible by BlackBerry's agreement with Foxconn for the manufacture of the Z3.
For those who are not aware of BlackBerry Z3's specs, here is a quick recap. First of all, the Z3 will ship with BlackBerry 10.2.1 operating system out of the box, which is one of the latest version of the platform.
In addition, the Z3 is equipped with a decent 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, which is complemented by an Adreno 305 graphics processing unit and 1.5GB of RAM.
On the back, the smartphone packs a 5-megapixel photo snapper with autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording, while in the front there's a secondary 1.1-megapixel camera for video calls that can also capture 720p clips.
BlackBerry Z3 sports a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports qHD (540 x 960 pixels) resolution. The handset includes only 8GB of internal memory, but users can further expand storage up to 32GB via microSD card slot.
When it comes to connectivity, the Z3 is an all-rounder. The handset offers 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 with LE (Low Energy), microUSB and GPS with A-GPS. The phone lacks NFC (Near Field Communication), but that's probably because it's been aimed at emerging markets where this standard is not well-established yet.
Last but not least, BlackBerry Z3 is powered by a 2500 mAh battery, which is rated by the manufacturer for up to 385 hours of standby time or up to 16 hours of talk time.
