Blackberry announces Q5 budget BB10 smartphone for emerging markets

The start of the BlackBerry Live 2013 annual conference today in Orlando, USA, saw the announcement of the BlackBerry Q5 - a QWERTY device for emerging markets.

The Blackberry Q5 revolves around a 3.1-inch touchscreen and one of BlackBerry's classic physical QWERTY keyboards.


BlackBerry has announced a new phone at its ongoing BlackBerry Live event. The handset – dubbed the Q5 – is a mid-end smartphone with a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard. The handset is aimed towards emerging markets. It will be available in red, white, black and pink colour options.


According to earlier rumours, the display of the Q5 is said have a resolution of 720 x 720 pixels. That makes it a Q10 twin as far as display is concerned. On the back will be a 5 megapixel camera along with what looks like an LED flash. Even though there’s no mention of the resolution of the front-facing camera, it is quite evident from leaked pictures that there will be one. The Q5 is said to have 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage and a non-removable 1800 mAh battery.

 It's set to launch in parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America starting in July. No price has been given, but this phone appears to be aimed at the same market as the popular Curve, which was meant for a broader base than BlackBerry's more expensive phones.
Details regarding the hardware specs of the BlackBerry Q5 are scarce at the current moment. All we know is that that its maker has used a 3.1-inch touchscreen for the new device. A front-facing camera appears to be present as well. 

we  know relatively little about the phone's specs. In his keynote speech, CEO Thorsten Heins promoted BlackBerry's software platform and the idea of a purely mobile computing experience, touting the Q5 for developing countries where smartphone networks are more ubiquitous than traditional internet connections. While its US market share has plummeted, BlackBerry maintains a strong user base in countries like India and Indonesia.

Another announcement that came from the today's keynote is that the BlackBerry 10.1 update is now ready to seed to the BlackBerry Z10 . Not only that, but starting today, Skype will be available to all users who update their Z10s to v10.1.