The BlackBerry Z10 is a

high-end In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast t ...

LTE

touchscreen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...

-based

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

developed by

BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy ...

, previously known as RIM. The BlackBerry Z10 is the first of two new BlackBerry phones presented at the BlackBerry 10 event on January 30, 2013. The BlackBerry Z10 was followed by the Z30.

Development

BlackBerry's chief operating officer Kristian Tear and chief marketing officer Frank Boulben fought against co-founder and former co-CEO

Mike Lazaridis Mihal "Mike" Lazaridis (born March 14, 1961) is a Canadian businessman, investor in quantum computing technologies, and founder of BlackBerry, which created and manufactured the BlackBerry wireless handheld device. With an estimated net worth of ...

to have the touchscreen Z10 prioritized over the Q10 which has a physical keyboard. Boublen was then responsible for and received "criticism for the marketing campaign that supported the Z10 launch, including a confusing Super Bowl advertisement which some board members hated". Both Tear and Boublen were ousted on November 25, 2013 by new CEO

John S. Chen John S. Chen (; born July 1, 1955) is a Hong Kong-American businessman serving as executive chairman and chief executive officer of BlackBerry Ltd. Previously, he served as the chief executive officer and president of Sybase, a software vendor s ...

, whom weeks earlier had replaced

Thorsten Heins Thorsten Heins (born 29 December 1957) is a German-Canadian businessman and the former chief executive officer (CEO) of BlackBerry. He stepped down as CEO of BlackBerry and was replaced by John Chen on November 4, 2013. Heins later served as the ...

Software

The BlackBerry Z10 uses the new

BlackBerry 10 BlackBerry 10 is a discontinued proprietary mobile operating system for the BlackBerry line of smartphones, both developed by BlackBerry Limited (formerly Research In Motion). BlackBerry 10 is based on QNX, a Unix-like operating system that was ...

(Currently running on 10.3.3)

mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on ...

based on

QNX QNX ( or ) is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. QNX was one of the first commercially successful microkernel operating systems. The product was originally developed in the early ...

. The

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

of BB 10 is based on the concept of

direct manipulation In computer science, human–computer interaction, and interaction design, direct manipulation is an approach to interfaces which involves continuous representation of objects of interest together with rapid, reversible, and incremental action ...

, using

multi-touch gestures In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CERN, MIT, University of ...

. Interaction with the OS includes a range of multi-touch gestures, all of which have specific definitions within the context of the BB10 operating system and its multi-touch interface. The Z10 comes pre-loaded with a variety of default BlackBerry applications. The phone has a mobile hotspot functionality, which supports up to 8 devices, sharing its internet connection. It accesses the

BlackBerry World BlackBerry World (previously known as BlackBerry App World) is an application distribution service, aka an 'app store', and application by BlackBerry Limited; for BlackBerry 10 devices, the BlackBerry PlayBook, and a majority of BlackBerry OS devi ...

, an online application distribution platform for the BlackBerry OS. The service allows users to browse and download applications, games, music, videos from the BlackBerry World store. Additionally, the touchscreen keyboard learns the user's writing style and suggests words to help the user type faster. The BlackBerry Z10 has an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera, as well as a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Its camera software includes a burst mode branded as "TimeShift". The Z10 has

voice control A voice-user interface (VUI) makes spoken human interaction with computers possible, using speech recognition to understand spoken commands and answer questions, and typically text to speech to play a reply. A voice command device is a device con ...

, that allows the user to operate the phone by spoken commands. This can be used to send messages, compose emails, dictate documents, and search the phone just by speaking to the app.

Hardware

There are four SKUs for the Blackberry Z10, corresponding to the North American carrier band distribution and international versions. The LTE version of the Z10 features the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus ( SoC) which has a dual-core CPU running at 1.5 GHz, and an Adreno 225

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

for LTE-capable units. For markets where LTE is not supported (international model),

released the Z10 with the

Texas Instruments OMAP The OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) family, developed by Texas Instruments, was a series of image/video processors. They are proprietary system on chips (SoCs) for portable and mobile multimedia applications. OMAP devices generally ...

4470 ( SoC) which has a dual-core CPU running at 1.5 GHz and a PowerVR SGX 544

. It will use STE M5730 modem. Z10 follow all the slate phone design, with the outer housing of the frame is made of plastic combined with an internal stainless steel metal frame, while the back cover was made of plastic and protected by rubber finish. The on/off and volume button were made of metal. It is available in 2 color variant, which is black and white. A limited red edition was available for qualified app developers.

Availability

In Canada, the BlackBerry Z10 was available at Bell Mobility (including Virgin Mobile Canada), Mobilicity,

Rogers Wireless Rogers Wireless Inc. is a Canadian wireless telephone company headquartered in Toronto, providing service nationally throughout Canada. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The company had revenues of just under $15.1 billi ...

(including Fido),

SaskTel Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corporation, operating as SaskTel, is a Canadian crown-owned telecommunications firm based in the province of Saskatchewan. Owned by the provincial government, it provides wireline and wireless communicat ...

Telus Mobility Telus Mobility (normally typeset as TELUS Mobility) is a Canadian wireless network operator and a division of Telus Communications which sells wireless services in Canada on its numerous networks. It operates 5G, LTE and HSPA+ on its mainstre ...

(including Koodo Mobile),

Wind Mobile Freedom Mobile Inc. is a Canadian wireless telecommunications provider owned by Shaw Communications. It has 6% market share of Canada, mostly in urban areas of Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. Freedom Mobile is the fourth-largest wirele ...

, and Vidéotron Mobile. It went on sale February 5, 2013. MTS mobility started a presale for the Z10 with an unknown launch date for the phone. Eastlink has also released the Z10. In South Africa the Z10 became available on February 22, 2013 on MTN. Vodacom had announced their intention to make the Z10 available, the day before on 21st Feb 2013. In Nigeria, the Z10 became available on March 1, 2013 on carriers Etisalat, Glo,

Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as (d/b/a) Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Current ...

and MTN Nigeria. Claro República Dominicana announced pre-order date of March 7 on Facebook and sale on March 14 in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

. Orange Dominicana also announced pre-order of March 7 with a launch of March 14 on their Facebook page. On February 10, 2013, prepaid provider and

T-Mobile US T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas and Bellevue, Washington, U.S. Its largest shareholder is a multinational telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG, which , holds 48.4 pe ...

-MVN
Solavei
became the first in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

to offer the BlackBerry Z10. In March 2013,

T-Mobile USA T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas Overland Park ( ) is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas. Located in Johnson County, Kansas, it is one of four principal ...

announced that the Z10 would be available for business pre-order on March 11, with pick-up on March 13. The store wide launch was scheduled for March 27. On March 11,

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

announced a March 22 release date for the device, with pre-orders beginning March 12.

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...

announced pre-ordered for March 14, with a release date of March 28. Mexican Telcel announced pre-orders for Z10 on March 21 on Facebook and finally released on April 2. In Australia, major telcos

Optus Singtel Optus Pty Limited (commonly referred to as Optus) is an Australian telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singaporean telecommunications company Singte ...

and

Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...

announced their intention to stock on March 25 and March 26 respectively. In

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Vodafone NZ Vodafone New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company. It was a subsidiary of the London-listed company Vodafone Plc until 31 July 2019, when its sale to a consortium comprising Infratil Limited and Brookfield Asset Manageme ...

made the BlackBerry Z10 available for sale on June 18, 2013. In India, the Z10 was launched on February 25, 2013. In Taiwan,

Taiwan Mobile Taiwan Mobile () is a mobile phone operator based in Taiwan. It is the second largest telecom company behind Chunghwa Telecom. History Taiwan Mobile started as part of a strategic divestment from the now defunct Pacific Electric Wire & Cable Co ...

Development

Software

Hardware

Availability

Model comparison

See also

References

External links