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BlackBerry's Porsche-designed Z10 is a phone that even it can't afford
If your company produced a device that, while technically accomplished, managed to lose you $1 billion a few months later, you'd probably try and pretend that it never existed. That's not the approach that BlackBerry is taking with the Z10, however. Instead, the beleaguered smartphone maker has teamed up with Porsche Design to create the P'9982, a gussied-up version of the touchscreen smartphone designed to tempt golf course-bound executives and the super rich in ways that the original evidently failed to do. We've just got one of the devices in our hand, and we thought we'd run the rule over it to see how the other half live.
BlackBerry's upscale P'9982 visits the FCC sporting AT&T-ready LTE
BlackBerry's luxurious Porsche Design P'9981 reached the US, but it wasn't really for the US -- it originally sold to British and Middle Eastern business tycoons. If a new FCC filing is any indication, the as yet unannounced P'9982 may be a different story. The upscale smartphone has just passed through the FCC carrying AT&T-native LTE and HSPA data, suggesting that it's built with American use in mind. It's not clear as to when and where the BlackBerry 10 device might launch, though. Tbreak has heard from BlackBerry partners in Dubai that the P'9982 may be unveiled before November 20th, but we don't know much more; there's a chance that AT&T support exists purely to accommodate travelers. Even if that's true, US buyers willing to import the premium smartphone will at least get the first-class cellular service they expect.
BlackBerry might re-try the Porsche Design thing with leaked P'9982
Those canny folks at Tinhte may have revealed yet another previously unknown handset, this time from BlackBerry. A leaked image appears to show a Porsche Design version of the Z10, packing what looks like a carbon fiber shell and other touches from the design house. Tinhte says the device would also run a custom version of BlackBerry 10 and cost $2,000 or more, while N4BB claims it'll be called the P'9982 (punctuation and all). Though the pictures look convincing enough, information about the naming, OS and price is purely speculative -- you might need an entire salt shaker to swallow it whole. Check the images for yourself at the source.