Canadian handset maker Blackberry has lately taken the wraps off its new Q20 smartphone at the MWC 2014 in Barcelona. The new smartphone draws design inspiration from the Blackberry’s famous “Bold” range and aims to deliver the full classic QWERTY experience to the buyers. During the launch event, the company’s CEO John Chen addressed the flagship Q20 smartphone as BlackBerry Classic. The handset brings back the QWERTY keyboard and features “Menu”, “Back”, “Send” and “End” Buttons and the Integrated Trackpad that eases one-handed use. In order to enhance the user’s typing experience, they have equipped the smartphone with frets and sculpted keys.
Blackberry CEO John Chen said at the launch, “I consistently heard from our ardent BlackBerry customers that the hard buttons and Track pad are an essential part of the BlackBerry QWERTY experience … I want these customers to know that we heard them, and this new smartphone will be for them.”
Blackberry rolled out the Q10 smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard last year and before that, the company was completely replying on the touch screen devices. The new Q20, which is the successor to the Q10, packs some interesting features and a couple of user-friendly improvements. Let us see what the new Blackberry Q20 smartphone has to offer to the prospective customers.
Salient features of Blackberry Q20
- It is a well-featured BlackBerry smartphone for the masses this season- and one that conveniently offered a physical QWERTY keyboard. This year BlackBerry needs to be better in every way to get the attention of those who like smartphones with compatible screen and this is the best ever BlackBerry smartphone, which is quite enough to bang the mobile marketplace. The Q20 improves on every bit that counts as it comes with comparatively bigger 3.5” display, which is little bigger than its predecessors. This is by far the biggest display on a QWERTY BlackBerry smartphone and it might appeal to the Blackberry users. The generous display will allow users to read messages, browse internet and access apps with utmost ease.
- It has almost the same hardware keyboard as its predecessor Q10. The device is equipped with a large battery to provide satisfying runtime. Other physical buttons include end, back and send keys. As the company has gone back to its roots and the phone features a physical QWERTY keyboard and a track pad, which is for its core fans.
- BlackBerry Q20 comes with BlackBerry 10.1 OS, which is a latest OS version and easy to do on a Wi-Fi network. It is helpful to move quickly to the last or next message without having to return to the message list.
- It runs on 1.5GHz Quad Core Processor and 2 GB of RAM, which will easily support your heavy files and games in your device.
- It is a successor of BlackBerry Q10. The phone has 3.5” Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen with HD resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels per inch protected with Gorilla Glass 3. Moreover, it comes with BB10.1 based UI and the screen with multi-touch function. Q20 comes in Black and White colors.
- Q20 has an excellent combination of hardware and software. It is plus point that the device runs on Quad-core Processor with 1.5 GHz Clock speed and 2 GB of RAM, which can offer faster performance and the operating System is BlackBerry 10.1 is out of the box now.
- It is offering an 8MP rear view camera with LED flash and 2 MP front camera, which allow you for video calling. The device play supported media formats, such as MP3, WAV, Eaac+ and MP4, H.264, H.263 and WMV.
- The Q20 comes with the 16 GB internal storage along with micro S Band, D slot for expandable up to 32 GB. Moreover, the device works on 3G via Quad Band, 2G via Tri Band. The 3G data transfer is via HSDPA and HSUPA, 4G via LTE. Other connectivity options like Bluetoothv4.0 with A2DP, microUSB v2.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with hotspot, NFC options are also available with the device.
Verdict
The new BlackBerry Q20 smartphone is an ideal choice for those who want the new BB10 OS and the benefits of the old BB7 hardware in a single package. The integration of QWERTY keyboard design with sculpted keys and the premium build quality might interest many Blackberry fans.
The launch of the Q20 smartphone hints that we can expect Blackberry to roll out more handsets of the ‘classic’ nature in the near future. Only the time will tell if the Q20 smartphone would be able to do some good for the struggling Canadian handset maker. While there is no word on the pricing of the new Blackberry Q20 smartphone, it is expected to hit the shelves in the second half of 2014.
