A BlackBerry for every budget–RIM to launch 6 devices in 013

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Canada-based Research in Motion has its hopes pinned on its massive launch scheduled for the end of this month – that of BlackBerry 10. At its event, the company will be introducing a couple of its devices running the new OS that has interests piqued too. A senior executive has revealed to Fierce Wireless that through the course of this year, the company will be releasing a bunch of BB10 handsets, catering to the high, middle and lower end price points of the market.

In fact, according to RIM CMO Frank Boulben, RIM will introduce at least six BB10 devices this year, beginning with an all-touch device and a phone with a QWERTY keyboard, which it will announce at the end of the month. In an interview with Fierce Wireless at the Consumer Electronics Show 2013, Boulben stated that the company "does not have any exclusive relationships with carriers for BB10 in any markets". He went on to add, "We intend over time as we transition the portfolio to have a full range of devices."

Big plans



Ever since talks surrounding BlackBerry 10 first began, analysts have held that the success of the platform is crucial for the company's future. An optimistic Boulben revealed that 150 carriers are testing the phones running the new OS globally. Interestingly, Boulben further revealed that at the time of the BB10 launch, there will be at least 70,000 applications available, complete with strong developer support. Reportedly, the company has been eyeing the top 600 apps across major markets, and according to Boulben, the new platform will support approximately 90 percent of those apps.

With the new platform, Boulben expressed that the company aims to "highlight its strengths in communication, typing, instant messaging and security with the new platform." Interestingly, even as it does that, the company reportedly has also been working on improving the weak points riddling its older phones, lack of apps being one.

"BlackBerry 10 is a full redesign of RIM's existing BlackBerry operating system. The new platform features a new user interface, BlackBerry Flow, which allows users to scroll seamlessly between apps. BlackBerry Peek allows users to glance at another application without leaving the one a user is currently running. And BlackBerry Hub combines users' various inboxes, messages and notifications," the report adds further.

Over the past few weeks, the web has been inundated with several instances of leaked images of BB10 devices. A new batch of images emerged recently, showing a BlackBerry N-Series QWERTY handset, which will be known as the X 10 when it hits the market.

The images, unlike previous leaks, were a lot clearer and this time around, we also saw that the handset was fully functional and running the upcoming BlackBerry 10 OS.

The website that acquired the images, N4BB, did not shed any light on what specifications will be found here, but upon launch, we shall know more.

There had been specifications that were leaked in the past about the L-Series device, which will be known as Z10 when it hits the shelves. Some of the highlighted features of this all-touch device include a 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4470 processor and support for quad band radio featuring HSPA+/UMTS, quad band GSM/GPRS and quad band LTE bands 2, 4, 5, 13, 17. It will also have a 4.2-inch screen with a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels, giving it a pixel density of 356 ppi. It will come with 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage with a hot swappable microSD card slot. It will also support all the standard Wi-Fi networks and GPS with A-GPS. The shooters on the device are an 8 megapixel rear camera with auto focus and a 2 megapixel front facing camera. The cameras will have 1080p video recording. All of this will be powered by an 1800 mAh battery.
 
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