BlackBerry launches the Z10 in India for $800

The BB10-toting BlackBerry Z10 has just been unveiled in India, priced at Rs 43,490 ($800) for an unlocked unit. Coinciding with the announcement, the BlackBerry Music Store has also gone live in the country starting today, offering a mix of local and international music. Support for local languages aside, the app offerings have been given an Indian flavor with the inclusion of country-specific goodies spanning various genres including news, banking, travel, entertainment and lifestyle. The subcontinent is quite important for the company formerly known as RIM, and its devices are still popular in the region, despite taking a beating in market share recently (see coverage), courtesy the BBM service that makes them the go-to smartphones for those hooked on to the instant messaging platform. However, the Z10's sticker price puts it in the same league as the 16GB iPhone 5 and HTC's full-HD Butterfly (both costing roughly $50 more), and it remains to be seen how the price-sensitive Indian market will react to the new entrant.

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BlackBerry introduces the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone in India

New Delhi, India, 25 February 2013 – BlackBerry® (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB) today introduced the new BlackBerry® Z10 smartphone powered by BlackBerry® 10 in India. The BlackBerry Z10 is the first BlackBerry smartphone to launch with the re-designed, re-engineered, and re-invented BlackBerry 10 platform, which offers customers a faster, smarter and smoother experience than any other BlackBerry smartphone they have used before.

"Without a doubt the BlackBerry Z10 is among the most important and much awaited BlackBerry launches in the history of the Indian smartphone industry, and we are thrilled to launch the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone with our carrier and retail partners across India. With BlackBerry 10, we have re-designed, re-engineered and re-invented BlackBerry to create a new and unique mobile computing experience, and we are uniquely positioned to change the way in which our customers view mobile technology. With BlackBerry 10, every feature, every gesture, and every detail is designed to keep you moving," said Mr. Sunil Dutt, Managing Director for India at BlackBerry.

Highlights of BlackBerry 10
BlackBerry 10 is a robust and reliable platform that is smooth and responsive. It has a modern design and a gesture-based interface that is highly discoverable. It is designed to support, learn, and adapt to the way you work and share with features like:

· The ever present BlackBerry® Hub, which is a single place to manage all your conversations whether personal or work email, BBM™ messages, social media updates or notifications, and the ability to "peek" into the BlackBerry Hub from anywhere, so you're always only one swipe away from what matters to you.
· BlackBerry® Flow, where the BlackBerry 10 experience excels by enabling features and apps to flow seamlessly together, helping you complete the task at hand effortlessly and efficiently. For example, you can tap on an attendee listed for a meeting to see their latest tweet or LinkedIn profile. Or tap the thumbnail of a picture you just took to launch the Picture editor and quickly apply a transformation or filter, then instantly share it with your contacts.
· A keyboard that understands and adapts to you, that learns what words you use and how you use them, then offers them up to you so you can type faster and more accurately.
· BBM (BlackBerry® Messenger), which allows you to share things with the people that matter to you in an instant. BBM in BlackBerry 10 includes voice calling and video chat, and introduces the ability to share your screen with another BlackBerry 10 contact.
· BlackBerry® Balance™ technology, which elegantly separates and secures work applications and data from personal content on BlackBerry devices.
· Time Shift, an astonishing camera feature that lets you capture a group shot where everyone is smiling with their eyes wide open. Story Maker, which lets you bring a collection of photos and videos together, along with music and effects, to produce an HD movie that you can instantly share.
· The new BlackBerry 10 browser, which sets the industry benchmark for HTML5 support on smartphones, is incredibly fast. Scrolling or zooming is fluid and responsive. The browser includes many advanced features, supports multiple tabs, lets you browse sites privately, includes a reader mode, and integrates with the platform for easily sharing content.
· BlackBerry® Remember, which combines memos, tasks and much more into a single experience. It helps you organize and manage information you have on your smartphone around projects or ideas, letting you collect content such as websites, emails, photos, documents, and other files, and then like a To-Do list, lets you create tasks, assign due dates, and track your progress. If your BlackBerry 10 smartphone is set up with a work account, your Microsoft® Outlook® Tasks will automatically be wirelessly synced with BlackBerry Remember. If you have configured an Evernote account with your smartphone, BlackBerry Remember will sync Evernote workbooks as well.
· BlackBerry® Safeguard technology that helps protect what is important to you, and the business you work for.
· Built-in support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® so your BlackBerry Z10 smartphone can be simply connected and managed as other ActiveSync devices in a company, or enabled with BlackBerry® Enterprise Service 10 to gain secure access to work email, "behind the firewall" applications and data, and benefit from other security and enterprise mobility management features.
· The BlackBerry® World™ storefront, which includes over 70,000 BlackBerry 10 apps and one of the most robust music catalogs in mobile today. In addition, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare apps for BlackBerry 10 are preinstalled, and BlackBerry 10 customers will have access to leading applications from across the globe. Leading application providers including Disney, Cisco, Foursquare, Skype and Rovio have committed to the platform, and more than 9,000 apps from Indian developers across a variety of categories will be available including: PVR, HDFC, Tap Cricket, Gold's Gym, Hungama, Map My India, Zomato, Jet Airways, Myplex, Juno for Tally, Ride smart, Track my car, Measure treasure, Blood Bank for BlackBerry, and My native language.
· Support for content in 8 Indian languages – Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Devanagiri (Hindi), Gurmukhi (Punjabi), Gujarati, and Bengali – as well as support for third-party solutions for Indian language input.

BlackBerry Z10 Smartphone
The new BlackBerry 10 smartphone is elegant and distinctive, and the fastest, most advanced BlackBerry smartphone yet. It features a 1.5 GHz dual core processor with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 64GB of additional storage. It includes the latest enhancements in high density pixel and screen technology to display clear, sharp, and incredibly vivid images. It features a micro HDMI out port for presentations, and advanced sensors such NFC (near field communications) to support mobile payments and the exchange of information with a tap of the smartphone, and comes with a removable battery.

Availability
The BlackBerry Z10 will be available in over 2000 retail outlets across 50 cities in India and will support carriers respective 3G or HSPA+ networks, including connectivity support for global roaming. The BlackBerry Z10 smartphones will also come in White and Black. For more information about the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone powered by BlackBerry 10 please visit in.blackberry.com

About BlackBerry
A global leader in wireless innovation, BlackBerry® revolutionized the mobile industry when it was introduced in 1999. Today, BlackBerry aims to inspire the success of our millions of customers around the world by continuously pushing the boundaries of mobile experiences. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, BlackBerry operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. BlackBerry is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ: BBRY) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BB). For more information, visit www.blackberry.com.