The Techie Guy – Liron Segev

It the final stretch to the long wait – Blackberry 10 is going to be revealed on 30th Jan. With the run-up to the launch, there are plenty of “official information” about what Blackberry 10 will have such as: the new Flow, Balance, the every-cool keyboard, 70 000 apps and just general overall awesomeness.

As with every anticipated device launch there are tightly sealed lips who know about the new superb features that havent been made public. This starts the rumour mill buzzing as people add their 5 cents to the mix.

So here are my Blackberry rumour-roundup that will make Blackberry 10 even cooler:

The Device:

The rumour is that there will be 2 devices: Z10 which is a full touchscreen and soft-keyboard as well as the  X10 which will have the full Blackberry QWERTY physical keyboard. That will make a lot of keyboard-die-hard fans very happy.

The Z10 is set to have 4.2-inches across, 1280 x 768-pixel resolution with a pixel-per-inch (ppi) count of 355 which is better then the iPhone 5, Galaxy S3, Nexus 4, and Galaxy Note 2. <gulp!>

The Z10 will have:

• 2GB of RAM
• 16GB or 32GB of storage
• Dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon MSM8960 processor
• 1,800mAh battery
• Bluetooth 4.0
• NFC
• microSD card slot for expanding storage
• 8-megapixel camera (1080p video recording capability) on the back and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

Will there be two variation of the hardware – one for 3G and one for LTE ? I suspect so by looking at the Network technologies in the countries where Blackberry has a strong-hold.

The Apps:

With RIM port-thons,financial incentives and their ease of use tools to program for BB10, I expect to see a range of Apps will cater for everyone’s taste. This will include the usual-suspect like native Twitter and Facebook. There is even a bet going that insists that Instagram will finally make it onto the Blackberry handset for the first time.

RIM has offered $100 for every paid app that is successfully ported and approved for BB10 which shows how simple it is to port to Blackberry 10.

Mapping and navigation is sure to get the attention they deserve. I suspect that this is a feature that every mobile users wants to have to get from point A to point B, to find the nearest restaurant and avoid traffic.

The change of Blackberry AppWorld to Blackberry World also signifies that we could be looking at more than just apps. I suspect that Entertainment such as movies & music will be a big feature. I also predict we will see a heavy emphasis on gaming which can be traced back to the various Blackberry Jams around the world who had a heavy “port your game to BB10” feel…

Blackberry’s vice-like grip revolves around BBM and this is the one feature that I am expecting to see big things from. We know that you can already make Voice Calls over BBM and I suspect that you will be able to also make Video calls over BBM in Blackberry10. Why else would you need a 2-megapixel front-facing camera? There is even talk of being able to SHARE THE SCREEN over BBM! How awesome would that be ?! We often just want someone else to see what we are seeing to discuss it. Imagine being able to snap a pic or open a document and instantly share your Blackberry 10 screen with your BBM contact (or contacts) whilst having a video call? that would be insane.

The Price of Blackberry 10 ?

According to a slight oopsie on the Carphone Warehouse sales screen it shows that the BlackBerry Z10 will come in white and will cost £480 (about R6779.57) which is £30 (R423.72) cheaper than a 16GB SIM-free iPhone 5

RIM is also said to have at least six BlackBerry 10 phones released in 2013, so they could potentially hit every range of price points. Nice.

So in Summary:

I guess we have to wait 48 more hours to see how many of these are true and how many are just rumours by over excited fans of #TeamBlackberry.

What is clear is that there is a definite buzz and excitement as people around the world are counting down the hours to the end of the month to see what RIM has in store for us.

I will be at the Blackberry launch in South Africa and will Tweet live from the event as the event unfolds so follow me on Twitter to get the breaking news !