BlackBerry Q5 now available to pre-order

If a front facing keyboard is for you then you do not have a lot of choice today in terms of smartphones. The Q5 is one such option.

We have today enabled the pre-order facility on this phone through clove.co.uk.

The exact price and release date is subject to change, but currently we expect the handset to sell for £295+VAT with the first units expected around the middle of July.

For more information, please click HERE.

BlackBerry Q10 languages

Have you wondered what language options you have available on the BlackBerry Q10?

In the following video we show you the options open to you.

BlackBerry Q10 sample images

The following is a series of photos captured on the BlackBerry Q10.

Click on any image to enlarge to the original image.

[Read more...]

BlackBerry Z10 Black £80 price drop!

BlackBerry Z10 price reduction

The price of the SIM-free BlackBerry Z10 has just received a hefty price drop of £70, which adds up to £84 including VAT. At the moment it’s only the black version of the handset that has been dropped in price, not the white.

Along with its keyboard counterpart, the Q10, the BlackBerry Z10 has spearheaded BlackBerry’s quest to reestablish itself within the smartphone market. It’s a slick device and the BlackBerry 10 operating system has some great features built into it.

You can read our full review of the Z10 here.

Below is a quick run through of the main features of the Z10 and a video comparing its size to rival devices. You can view our other Z10 video content here.

BlackBerry Z10 Main Features:

  • BB10 OS
  • 4.2 inch high resolution screen
  • 1.5 GHz dual-core
  • Updated BlackBerry services: Hub, Browser, Keyboard, Balance and World
  • 8MP camera with Time Shift
  • 16 GB internal storage
  • Up to 64 GB micro SD card

BlackBerry Q10 unboxing

We unbox the new BlackBerry Q10.

BlackBerry Q10 now in stock

We can confirm after a few delays, we now have the BlackBerry Q10 in Black in stock.

If you are an avid BlackBerry fan but didn’t like the idea of not having a keyboard on the Z10, then the Q10 is the answer.

Find out more or order yours HERE.

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BlackBerry announces BBM Channels

BlackBerry ChannelsWe saw some big announcements at BlackBerry Live yesterday; BBM is coming to Android iOS and there’s a new budget BlackBerry to be released, the Q5. As well as this, BlackBerry has announced BBM Channels – a Twitter-like service for BlackBerry Messenger.

The beta release of BlackBerry Channels can be downloaded from BlackBerry Beta Zone.

With BBM Channels, organisations or individual users can create a stream on content to share and interact with others in real-time. To promote the beta launch of BBM Channels, Lewis Hamilton joined Thorsten Heins on stage to announce the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS channel.

The idea behind channels is that organisations can publish content and then discuss it directly with fans. For such organisations there are built-in tools to monitor engagement and assess followers. Channels can be managed directly from a BlackBerry handset or from the web.

For users, there is a new discovery tool for finding new channels, which can be shared using a BB Pin or QR code. There’s also the ability to subscribe to a channel – much like Twitter – so that you receive updates as soon as new content is published.

The new BBM Channels beta is available for smartphones running BlackBerry 10 (the Q10 and the Z10) and BlackBerry handsets running BlackBerry 5 OS through 7.1.

Be sure to let us know what you think if you give it a try!

BlackBerry Messenger coming to Android and iOS this summer

BlackBerry has announced that it plans to make its popular messaging service, BBM, available across multiple platforms this summer. The news emerged from BlackBerry live 2013, which kicked off yesterday in Orlando, Florida. 

BlackBerry Messenger for Android

BlackBerry Messenger has long been one of the exclusive selling points of BlackBerry handsets. However, while the service useful initially as a USP, its lack of availability on other platforms has left room for rival services such as WhatsApp to gain considerable market share in the mobile messaging market. 

The first release of BBM for Android and iOS (subject to approval from the Play Store and the App Store respectively) will make the service’s core features available to users, including: 

  • Delivery reports/read notices
  • Multi-person messaging
  • Voice note sharing
  • BlackBerry groups, which can include up to 30 users and share calendar appointments, photos and more

Later on in 2013 BlackBerry expects to add functionality for its newly announced BlackBerry Channels (a Twitter-like service for BBM), voice chat and video chat to its Android/iOS apps, which will be free to download.

BlackBerry is not the only company trying to unify its messaging service at the moment. Facebook recently stepped up its offering with improvements to Facebook Messenger (which now includes free voice calls in some regions), WhatsApp does not yet have voice calling, but is the most widespread cross-platfrom messaging app in many regions, Skype has long offered free voice calls and is being integrated with more of Microsoft’s services, plus Google is expected to announce a massive update to its messaging portfolio at Google I/O this week. 

It’ll be interesting to see which of the above makes it to the top first – a truly unified cross-platform messaging app would only leave room for one or two of these to be prevalent in the long run. 

BlackBerry Q10: Battery Life

How good is the BlackBerry Q10 Battery Life?

BlackBerry Q10

According to BlackBerry, the Q10 should last up to two days without a charge and a good level of usage. It’s got a larger battery than BlackBerry’s touchscreen flagship, the Z10, plus it’s dark theme will help to conserve juice thanks to the AMOLED display.

Naturally the Q10 will have better battery life than other market leaders with their 5″ screens, but if a long lasting battery and improved productivity are more important to you than a big display, the Q10 is a worthwhile consideration. Of course, if you want even more battery than what the Q10 offers out of the box, there’s always the Q10 battery charging bundle available.

Let’s have a look at what some reviews have had to say about the battery life of the Q10′s 2100mAh battery:

CrackBerry

There’s no doubt in saying that CrackBerry were more than impressed with the Q10′s performance, calling its battery life ‘the best ever on a BlackBerry’. Here’s a few more lines on their initial thoughts:

“The Q10 battery comes in at 2100 mAh – that’s 16% bigger than 1800 mAh Z10 battery and over 70% bigger than the 1230 mAh battery of the Bold 9900. With the smaller screen size, dark theme option and other tweaks in the Q10 OS, we expect the battery life to be more than sufficient for both average and power users alike.

While we’ve been able to put the Q10 through the paces for this review, we haven’t had the chance to knock out a “real world” test of the battery just yet. What we can say is that the battery life here is awesome. Even with our constant use of the Q10, the battery has held up strong and made us proud.”

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BlackBerry Q10 User Manual/Guide

BlackBerry Q10 User Manual

Below you will find the official user guide for the BlackBerry Q10.

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