BlackBerry Q10 Available For Pre-Order Ahead Of April Release

The Carphone Warehouse is now accepting pre-orders for the BlackBerry Q10 and expects to deliver the device by the end of April.

All of the major UK operators including O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, Three and EE will stock the device, which can also be bought SIM-free for an eye-watering £579.95.

The BlackBerry Q10 was first unveiled in January alongside the BlackBerry Z10 and is the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone to boast a physical keyboard. It sits below a 3.1 inch Super AMOLED touchscreen, which is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor.

BlackBerry Q10 launch

The smartphone has an eight megapixel rear facing camera and 16GB of storage, which can be upgraded to 64GB via a memory card slot. It features a removable battery, Near Field Communication (NFC) support and will work on 4G networks.

BlackBerry 10 is seen as vital to the company’s chances of a revival after its share of the smartphone market has been eroded by rivals such as Apple and Samsung. BlackBerry hopes that the platform will appeal to both consumers and the enterprise, bridging the divide between business and pleasure.

The BlackBerry Z10 has been well-received by critics since it was launched in the UK earlier this year, and has so far shifted more than one million units, contributing to surprising levels of profit for the company in its most recent set of quarterly results.

CEO Thorsten Heins has said that 55 percent of those who bought a Z10 had switched from another platform, claiming that this was a “strong testament to the strength of the product”. However the Z10 has only been available in the US since last month, with shares in BlackBerry falling following suggestions that the launch had been lacklustre.

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