BlackBerry details QWERTY Q20 flagship smartphone
By Staff Writer 25 February 2014 | Categories: newsAlthough things might not be going BlackBerry’s way recently, it doesn’t mean the company will not deliver any more smartphones. It has detailed its latest QWERTY keyboard sporting flagship, the Q20, at the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The announcement serves as confirmation that BlackBerry has not lost faith in the value of its touch and type enabled devices, designed to deliver a complete and distinctive QWERTY typing experience on BlackBerry 10, according to the Canadian-based company.
A follow up to the Q10 (review), which launched in April 2013, BlackBerry has fitted the Q20 with a larger 3.5” display, compared to the 3.1” screen found on the earlier iteration. Other notable inclusions are the integration of a trackpad, as well as the classic ‘Menu’, ‘Back’, ‘Send’ and ‘End’ buttons to enable easier navigation. This type of keyboard setup was last seen on BB7 devices like the Bold 9900 (review).
The addition of a trackpad and buttons to the Q20 were in response to complaints received from frustrated BlackBerry consumers. BlackBerry CEO, John Chen, highlighted their omission as a contributing factor to the poor showing of the Q10 last year.
There is currently not much known about the innards of the device, with no specifications released regarding processor or RAM. The Q20 pricing and availability is currently unconfirmed, but it is expected to be released in the second half of 2014. If BlackBerry can get the Q20 to an attractive price point, along with its newly integrated type and navigation features, it may just have a better outing than its predecessor.
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