It’s a big day for mobile today, as just hours after Nokia announced the Lumia 925, BlackBerry has given us a new device too, and it’s the BlackBerry Q5. It looks very similar to the BlackBerry R10 leaked over the past few months, and while details were scarce to start with, reports are starting to come through confirming its specification.
The BlackBerry Q5 is set to be a low-cost version of the BlackBerry Q10, however its specs aren’t drastically different from its big brother. The QWERTY keyboard is in place, but the design isn’t as classy as the Q10’s, but it is equipped with the same 3.1-inch touchscreen sporting a 720 x 720 pixel resolution.
On the rear of the shapely rear panel (which is reminiscent of the iPhone 3G/3GS) is a 5-megapixel camera, which also comes with the Time Shift and Story Maker software, while above the screen is a 2-megapixel video call lens. It’s powered by a 1.2GHz processor with 2GB of RAM, and has 8GB of internal storage with a microSD card slot should you need more. The Q5 is marginally thicker than the BlackBerry Q10, at 10.8mm, but it weighs slightly less, at 120 grams. Other features include a 2180mAh battery, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and if Clove Technology’s spec page is correct, NFC connectivity. As is obvious from the picture, the BlackBerry Q5 will come in three colors, black, white and red, and it’ll arrive running version 10.1 of the BlackBerry operating system.
Although BlackBerry has kept fairly quiet about the Q5’s features, it has been more forthcoming about where it’ll be sold. It has confirmed parts of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America will all get the BlackBerry Q5 from July onwards; however, it’s not clear if the phone will be coming to North America. According to CNet UK, the BlackBerry Q5 will be released in the UK, as confirmed to them by retailer Phones4U.
Updated on 06/18/2013 at 2:00pm by Andy: The BlackBerry Q5 has been put up for pre-order in the UK by online retailer Clove Technology, where it has been priced at £330 (which is around $515 at today’s currency rate) without a contract. This makes it nearly £200 less than an unconnected BlackBerry Q10. According to Clove, the phone will go on sale July 1.
Article originally published on 05/14/2013
