Predictably, BlackBerry is working on a new QWERTY handset. According to the BlackBerry 10.3 SDK, the device will rock a square screen with a 1440×1440 resolution and pixel density of 453 DPI — that’s significantly higher than the somewhat arbitrary definition of a retina display.
BlackBerry has long said that they are not giving up on making handsets. With that, the company has also remained committed to the QWERTY form factor that has so far defined the company’s products.
Just yesterday, BlackBerry unveiled its latest full-touchscreen device called the Z3. The $200 device is decidedly entry-level on the specs page, but that’s BlackBerry’s goal; make something with a touchscreen that competes with low-cost Android devices for a market where it has already ceded a lot of ground to cheap hardware running Google’s mobile OS. BlackBerry used to count Indonesia as one of its most important international strongholds, and the Jakarta is an attempt to renew the siege to get it back.
Likewise, BlackBerry will likely reintroduce a QWERTY handset destined for BlackBerry holdouts and niche markets that still rely on BlackBerry’s enterprise services. Of course BlackBerry failed to reveal any other details about the upcoming device, but chances are its launch is immanent now that devs have the SDK.
In other news, BlackBerry emailed me today to in part announce the availability of a SnapChat clone on BlackBerry World. So they have that going for the platform.
Photo by brian gautreau under a CC BY-SA 2.0
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