At least six BlackBerry 10 devices will finally ship this year on three US carriers
Ever since the PlayBook launched and (mostly) failed, RIM has been pinning most of its future smartphone hopes on the BlackBerry 10 OS and its accompanying devices. We know that the company was planning to introduce at least one BlackBerry 10 device to the market on January 30, but now the company has made a further promise. Along with whatever is released on the 30th, RIM CEO Frank Boulben has said that the company will release at least six different devices, on at least three major US carriers.
Of those six devices, half will have keyboards, while half will be a more standard all-touch slab design. In addition, the devices will cover low, medium, and high price points, which makes me think that there will be one of each form factor for every price. They may not all come out on January 30 or be announced early this year at all, but according to RIM’s CEO, they should all be out by the end of this year.
Naturally the devices must also launch on carrier partners. With RIM’s previous dominance, it is no surprise that AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have already expressed support of RIM’s BlackBerry 10 devices. Interestingly, Sprint has yet to say much on the subject, but this may be because it has plenty of its own problems to deal with before it can worry about helping RIM.
Although I’m a fairly dedicated Android fan, after trying the PlayBook for a time back when it first came out, I’m interested to see what BB10 brings to the table. I doubt I’ll decide to switch anytime soon, but I’d certainly like to see what RIM can come up with, and competition is always a good thing.
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