23 February 2013, Singapore – BlackBerry created quite a stir at CES 2013 with the announcement of its elegant looking smartphone, the Z10. The new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone is finally launched here in Singapore on 21 February. Once the king of the smartphone market, BlackBerry is set to recapture the hearts of many who abandoned their BlackBerrys for iOS and Android. Adapting to the market demands, BlackBerry has re-designed re-engineered and re-invented the Z10 (all-touch), which runs on a completely new BlackBerry 10 platform. BlackBerry promises to give users a new and unique mobile computing experience with its latest offering.
Charles Dufourcq, Country Director for Singapore at BlackBerry said, “2013 is definitely a big year for BlackBerry in Singapore. Ten years have passed since BlackBerry smartphones were first officially introduced here. And today, it is my pleasure to announce that BlackBerry 10 is coming to Singapore with the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone. We expect BlackBerry fans will be extremely delighted with the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone powered by BlackBerry 10, which offers a faster and smarter experience that continuously adapts to a customer’s needs.”
First look of the phone is indeed impressive. The Z10 is available in two colors, Black and White. Design wise, it looked elegant and clean from the front view, with the Blackberry logo prominently displayed. Not surprisingly, it is the fastest and most advanced BlackBerry smartphone in the market. Hardware wise, it packs a 1.5 Ghz dual core processor with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 64GB cards, pretty much the standard among the smartphones. Needless to say, it is also a LTE/4G phone which means fast internet connectivity on-the-go. Also, the Z10 supports a micro HDMI out port for presentations and the NFC (Near Field Communications) to support the latest services such as mobile payments simply by tapping the smartphone.
Some notable features of the Z10:
- BBM (BlackBerry® Messenger), which allows you to share things with the people that matter to you in an instant. BBM in BlackBerry 10 includes voice calling and video chat, and introduces the ability to share your screen with another BlackBerry 10 contact.
- BlackBerry® Flow, where the BlackBerry 10 experience excels by enabling features and apps to flow seamlessly together, helping you complete the task at hand effortlessly and efficiently. For example, you can tap on an attendee listed for a meeting to see their latest tweet or LinkedIn profile. Or tap the thumbnail of a picture you just took to launch the Picture Editor and quickly apply a transformation or filter, then instantly share it with your contacts.
- A keyboard that understands and adapts to you, that learns what words you use and how you use them, then offers them up to you so you can type faster and more accurately.
- BlackBerry® BalanceTM technology, which elegantly separates and secures work applications and data from personal content on BlackBerry devices.
- BlackBerry® Safeguard technology that helps protect what is important to you, and the business you work for.
- Built--in support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® so your BlackBerry Z10 smartphone can be simply connected and managed as other ActiveSync devices in a company, or enabled with BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10 to gain secure access to work email, “behind the firewall” applications and data, and benefit from other security and enterprise mobility management features.
The Metropolitant Team was at the launch event and our editor was lukcy enough to have a little hands-on experience with the phone. Being a non BlackBerry user, the user-interface quickly reminds him of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platform with its modern look and fluid animations. However unlike any smartphone in the market, the Z10 is an all-touch phone, which means that all operations are performed using touch and gestures only. This is an even more minimalistic approach than Apple. It does not have a physical button for home/back/menu list that are offered in other smartphones. As such, it does have a learning curve to get used to. It may be a little daunting for first time users. It should get better after getting used to it. Being and avid shutterbug, it was obligatory for our editor to test out the camera. Alas, camera-wise, it was not up to par with the other smartphones in the market. But hey, it was never a concern for BlackBerry users.
When & where you can get it?
The BlackBerry Z10 will be available trough all authorised BlackBerry carriers in Singapore – Singtel, Starhub and M1 on 7th March. You can pre-order the phones from 21 February 2013 through the telcos websites: