BlackBerry Takes Its PR Fight To The SEC: Seeks Review Of “False” Report On Return Rates Of BB Z10

via techcrunch.com

BlackBerry, the beleaguered Canadian handset maker, today said it is contacting the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Ontario Securities Commission for formal reviews of the analysts Detwiler Fenton, after its analysts issued a statement saying that its new flagship handset, the BB Z10, was seeing record-levels of returns in retail sales — reports that BlackBerry today says are “false and misleading.”

“Sales of the BlackBerry® Z10 are meeting expectations and the data we have collected from our retail and carrier partners demonstrates that customers are satisfied with their devices,” said BlackBerry President and CEO Thorsten Heins said in a statement. “Return rate statistics show that we are at or below our forecasts and right in line with the industry. To suggest otherwise is either a gross misreading of the data or a willful manipulation. Such a conclusion is absolutely without basis and BlackBerry will not leave it unchallenged.”

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BlackBerry Z10 Officially Available on AT&T

via mashable.com

The BlackBerry Z10 smartphone is now officially available on AT&T.

The struggling manufacturer — which is hopeful its new flagship device will ignite a company resurgence — announced on Friday the Z10 can finally be activated on AT&T. It costs $199 with a two-year contract.

BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion (RIM), also sent a tweet at midnight ET announcing Best Buy will start selling the device on Friday for $199 with a two-year contract.

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Who Bought One Million BlackBerry 10 Devices?

via allthingsd.com

When BlackBerry announced the largest single handset purchase in the company’s history earlier this week — one million BlackBerry 10 devices — it refused to name the “established partner” to which they’d been sold. “We are bound by confidentiality,” BlackBerry spokesman Adam Emery told AllThingsD when asked who the mystery customer might be.

At the time the announcement was made, speculation was that the “established partner” was most likely a carrier. And since it occured the same week that AT&T and Verizon both began taking preorders for the BlackBerry Z10, some assumed that one of them was responsible for that one-million-device order.

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Report: Sprint Will Get an All-Touchscreen BlackBerry That's Not the Z10

via gizmodo.com

We already heard that Sprint would launch BlackBerry's (maybe) QWERTY savior the Q10 sometime this year, but the company has bee very silent about the new flagship Z10, even as each AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have all have already announced plans. Now, ATD reports that Sprint will get an all-touch screen phone that's not the Z10. Say what?

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BlackBerry’s Z10 Will Make Its AT&T Debut On March 22 For $199, Pre-Orders Kick Off Tomorrow

via techcrunch.com

Just days after Bloomberg ran a report claiming that AT&T would release BlackBerry’s long-awaited Z10 smartphone on March 22, AT&T has issued a statement confirming that launch will indeed go forward as reported. Prospective BlackBerry owners will have to shell out $199 for the Canadian company’s new flagship and (for better or worse) sign a two year contract.

In the event that you absolutely need to have one (a sentiment that our own Darrell Etherington didn’t share in his full review), AT&T will kick off the pre-order process starting tomorrow, March 12.

This makes AT&T the second of the three major U.S. wireless carriers to announce availability for the Z10 — T-Mobile announced late last week that its business customers would be able to get their hands on the device starting today, though it remained decidedly mum when it came to general consumer availability. Verizon on the other hand is widely expected to push BlackBerry’s Z10 out the door sometime in April, and Sprint has decided to focus solely on the QWERTY keyboard-packing Q10 (see our hands-on impressions here).

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BlackBerry Z10 Said to Hit AT&T Stores March 22 for U.S.

via bloomberg.com

BlackBerry’s new Z10 device will go on sale with AT&T Inc. (T) on March 22 as the Canadian smartphone maker seeks a sales recovery in its biggest market, according to two people familiar with the plan.

The touch-screen phone will begin appearing in U.S. stores that day, said the people, who asked not to be named because no release date has been announced.

BlackBerry, which gets about one-fifth of revenue from the U.S., is counting on the Z10 to revive its brand’s appeal against more popular rivals led by Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone. While the device has won praise from U.S. technology critics and will have already debuted in 21 countries at the end of this week, American consumers have had to wait because their carriers have longer testing periods for phones.

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Retailer says BlackBerry Z10 outselling iPhone 5, Galaxy 3 in Canada

via theglobeandmail.com

A major wireless retailer said Research In Motion Ltd.’s new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone has sold better since its launch than more popular devices such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone 5 and Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S3 devices in Canada.

In a statement released on Monday, Burnaby, B.C.-based Glentel Inc., said the new Z10 model was “the leading smartphone” sold within its 330 Canadian Wirelesswave and Wave sans Fils retail stores since the device’s launch on Feb. 5.

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BlackBerry Z10 Smartphone Breaks BB Sales Records in UK and Canada

via www.gadgetell.com">technologytell.com

BlackBerry’s January 30 comeback seemed to be met with only lukewarm enthusiasm by tech “specialists” and regular fans alike, but guess what, BB 10 might be a much bigger hit than anyone had predicted.

At least that’s what we can make of the most recent statements issued by Thorsten Heins, the CEO of the company formerly known as RIM. The first BlackBerry 10 OS-powered device, the Z10, has hit the ground running in both UK and Canada.

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BlackBerry Z10 Review

via businessinsider.com

BlackBerry lost its way over the years. You can't argue against that.

Even after the launch of the iPhone, the company buried its head in the sand and refused to admit the future of smartphones was in gorgeous touchscreen hardware with friendly, innovative interfaces.

Consumers started ditching their BlackBerrys for the iPhone and Android phones. First-time smartphone buyers ignored the BlackBerry. The company's dominant smartphone market share dwindled. The stock tanked.

And now, six years after the iPhone was introduced to the world, it seems BlackBerry has finally learned its lesson caught up with the competition with its newest smartphone, the BlackBerry Z10.

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BlackBerry Z10 Jumps Off to a Record-Setting Start in Canada and U.K.

via allthingsd.com

BlackBerry’s new Z10 smartphone is a record-setter — in two of the first markets in which it debuted, anyway.

BlackBerry said on Wednesday that the Canadian and U.K. launches of the Z10 have been the best of any of its handsets debuts in those regions ever.

“In Canada, yesterday was the best day ever for the first day of a launch of a new BlackBerry smartphone. In fact, it was more than 50 percent better than any other launch day in our history in Canada,” BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said in a statement sent to AllThingsD. “In the U.K., we have seen close to three times our best performance ever for the first week of sales for a BlackBerry smartphone.”

The company declined to provide any hard sales numbers. And while we tried to dig up some old metrics from which to extrapolate, we have so far been unsuccessful. If those numbers exist somewhere outside of Waterloo, we haven’t been able to find them. In other words, early Z10 sales are much better than some numbers BlackBerry isn’t quantifying.

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New BlackBerry arrives in Canada, carriers see strong demand

via theglobeandmail.com

Research In Motion Ltd.’s new BlackBerrys are launching in Canada on Tuesday, as Canadian carriers report record preorders of the device and some wireless retailers in the U.K. appear to have sold out of the smartphones.

After a big unveiling event in New York last week where the company unveiled two new devices running brand new software, RIM is rolling out the BlackBerry Z10 touchscreen phone in markets around the world, beginning in the U.K. and hitting Canada and the United Arab Emirates before the devices launch in the U.S., likely in March. The BlackBerry Q10, which has a physical keyboard, is likely going to begin its global launch in April.

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BlackBerry's Super Bowl Ad Shows All the Things the Z10 Can't Do

via mashable.com

The BlackBerry Z10 does so much that BlackBerry gave up trying to explain it all and instead released an ad showing fanciful things it can't do.

That's the premise of the brand's first-ever Super Bowl ad, which just ran in the third quarter of the game. The ad, from London's AMV BBDO. The spot is designed to confuse the viewer at first by showing a guy using the phone to set himself aflame and then put himself out. Then he grows elephant legs, disappears into a colorful puff of smoke, reemerges from a manhole cover and turns a careening oil truck heading his direction into thousands of rubber ducks.

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New BlackBerry Z10 & Q10 Smartphones Gunning For Apple, Google

via readwrite.com

BlackBerry is back.

The company formerly known as Research In Motion Wednesday announced two new devices on its brand new BlackBerry 10 operating system at a keynote address in New York City.

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How the Blackberry Z10 Stacks Up to the Competition

via gizmodo.com

The Q10's physical keyboard may be the most notable feature in the new lineup, but the Z10 is BlackBerry's best shot at taking a share of the more prominent (at least for now), touchscreen market. So can the Z10 measure up to some of the its biggest contenders?

Unsurprisingly, there's not a whole lot of variability under the hood of top phones. BlackBerry's playing catchup here, and so while they're hitting all the features we've come to expect in top of the line smartphones (e.g. LTE, 8 megapixel camera, high pixel density, NFC), they're not offering any real standout innovation. Of course, specs aren't going to tell the whole story, but here they are anyway—we're interested to hear what you think.

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BlackBerry unveils BB10, and Z10 and Q10 smartphones: Can RIM beat out Microsoft for third place?

via extremetech.com

BlackBerry has taken the wraps off the BlackBerry 10 operating system, and the Z10 and Q10 smartphones. Yes, RIM is no more: the company is now called BlackBerry. The Z10, which is a full-bodied, 4.2-inch smartphone, will be available in the UK tomorrow, Canada on February 5, and the US sometime in March. The Q10, which has a hardware QWERTY keyboard and 3.1-inch square screen, doesn’t seem to have a launch schedule.

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What we know about BlackBerry 10

via engadget.com

Despite -- or rather thanks to -- major delays in releasing BlackBerry 10, RIM has let quite a bit slip about its upcoming operating system and related BB10 devices. We've had more than a year to absorb leaks, rumors and official information, after all, so it's no surprise that we have a very good idea of what to expect when Waterloo pulls back the curtain on January 30th. That doesn't mean things are as plain as day, though; the deluge of blurrycam shots and carrier screens have provided an almost indigestible amount of information about BB10, and we don't blame you if you can't keep the story straight. We're here to parse the madness, though, so read on to find out what to expect at tomorrow's launch event.

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Reminder: We're live at RIM's BlackBerry 10 unveiling tomorrow

via engadget.com

The BlackBerry Experience is almost ready to begin. In 24 hours RIM will deliver upon us a wholly new operating system, the QNX-based phone OS that 'Berry fans have been awaiting for years. And, if that weren't enough, we're expecting two totally new smartphones to run it, one being the frequently leaked Z10, the other a somewhat more mysterious QWERTY model. Are you ready to see them for real? Set your browsers to our liveblog page right here and join us at the time listed below.

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Sorry Apple, the BlackBerry Z10 Is Hotter Than the iPhone

via gizmodo.com

I've always hated BlackBerry phones. Disgracefully ugly bricks they were—until BlackBerry 10. The BlackBerry Z10 is hot. Truly beautiful, elegant hardware. If the OS is as nice as it seemed at CES, I will totally snatch one up.

These BlackBerry Z10 vs iPhone 5 comparative renders by our friend Martin Hajek are great. Not only because they show off just how beautiful a phone RIM has built, but because they demonstrate why we should still care about BlackBerry. With hardware as lovely as this, it may still have a chance at coming back with a vengeance.

The comparative images were made by Martin using leaked physical data and pictures which are believed to be the real thing. I love that is has zero buttons. It does it all through the screen's touch abilities, and that's all you need.

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BlackBerry Z10 Goes Head-To-Head With iPhone 5 On Video

via techcrunch.com

When is a secret not a secret? When it’s featured in comparison videos ahead of an official product launch. The upcoming BlackBerry Z10 (which, if called something else or designed differently when it’s officially unveiled next week will actually blow everyone’s minds) is now starring in a video by German blog telekom-presse.at (via 9t05Mac), doing its business next to an iPhone 5. It provides a good look at how the two compare physically, but also how the two operating systems running each compare similar tasks.

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BlackBerry Z10 shown in first hands-on video

via engadget.com

We've had an early look at the BlackBerry Z10 already -- both from a leak of RIM marketing materials and from footage allegedly showing the handset's components -- but Austrian publication Telekom-Presse can lay claim to the first hands-on video with the phone. The seven-and-a-half-minute clip shows off the hardware in great detail -- including what looks to be a removable plastic cover on the backing -- and the narrator lists specs, including a 4.2-inch HD display, a dual-core 1.5GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor and 2GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board storage. According to the video, the Z10 weighs about 125 grams (4.4 ounces). Of course, the hands-on also demos the BB10 operating system, and it looks to run quite smoothly as the user carries out such gestures as swiping to reveal the BlackBerry Hub. We'll get an even better look at the Z10 when it becomes official, but for now jump past the break for a look at the video (natürlich auf Deutsch).

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