BlackBerry Z3 'Jakarta' coming to Indonesia in April for under $200
BlackBerry CEO John Chen is here at MWC and has some device news. The executive announced progress on the Z3, the phone codenamed Jakarta (shown off above), which will be coming out to Indonesia in April. The company plans to sell the 5-inch device, which is a collaboration between BlackBerry and Foxconn, for under $200. The initial model will be 3G-only, but Chen also tells us that there will be an LTE version coming out to other parts of the world at some time in the future; joking, Chen mentioned that it would come out "sometime before I die." We're also told that BlackBerry plans to do some interesting new stuff with BBM.
Update: We got a few up-close photos of the Z3, which you'll find below. The Z3, which runs BB 10.2.1, definitely has the trademark look and feel of a BlackBerry. It's a sleek all-touch device with a ridged soft-touch back cover. Unfortunately we weren't able to hold it, so we can't speak to how comfortable it is. We're also told that we'll be quite happy with the long battery life, but no solid specs were given. BlackBerry has put up more info about the Z3 on its blog.
Additionally, Chen also officially confirmed that a device known as the Q20, aka the Classic, is in the works, and will be coming out alongside BES 12 sometime before the end of the year. The Q20 will be a QWERTY device that will feature the "tool belt," which means you'll see a classic trackpad and function keys. Speaking of BES12, the new update will be backwards-compatible to older BlackBerry devices and will support iOS, Android and Windows Phone.
Lastly, Chen confirmed that BlackBerry is working on a few high-end phones for later this year, but he was unable to offer any additional details at today's event. However, we shouldn't expect to see any wearables from BlackBerry anytime soon; Chen has no plans -- "at least, not yet."
