Move over iPhone, Galaxy, and Android, the BlackBerry is ready to fight.
On Wednesday, Research in Motion, the company behind BlackBerry, formally changed its name to match its most well-known product, and a new brand was officially born. Frank Boulben, chief marketing officer of BlackBerry said, “We thought this was time to symbolize a real change with a name change. We wanted to have one brand, one premise, to focus all of our marketing efforts.” BlackBerry has unveiled a phone that is ready to finally compete with the smartphone wave of Apple and Samsung. All technology reviewers and analysts who have had advance access to the phone are giving it rave reviews and referring to it as BlackBerry’s first competitive touch-screen phone.
Here is how the phone lays out: It has a high definition video recording camera, a front and back camera, it will be available on all major carriers, and will be available with 16 gigabytes of memory. The Z10 software already has about 70,000 apps and allows users to swipe upward shoving all the apps into a corner of the screen and thus opening up to four windows. This version of multi-tasking directly challenges that of the iPhone.
Then there is the Hub feature. Users can access all social media in one place–Facebook, Twitter, and even email–leaving one central location to answer all messages without loading individual applications.
“These BlackBerry 10 devices are absolutely the best typing experience in the industry,” Thornsten Heins Blackberry’s chief executive said on Wednesday, and according to the reviews this appears to be true. The Blackberry offers suggestive words as you type along that you can click on and then suggests words you may use further along in your sentence. While the iPhone and Android tried to do this, their virtual keyboards have been less than successful, reviews say.
One negative that has been found about the BlackBerry Z10 is the battery life. Critics say it does not last all day. However, you are able to remove the case and replace the battery, which is something you cannot do with the iPhone.
While BlackBerry’s used to be the “go to” technology for most Americans who needed messaging on the run, now many people rely on their Apple or Android phones due to the better internet capabilities. So is it a little too late? With the new BlackBerry being released in Canada in February and America in March only time will tell but according to experts they are on the right steps to getting back on the map.
Abby Borovitz