The BlackBerry Q10 goes on sale at AT&T tomorrow, while the stock market and analysts try to predict BlackBerry profits.
The Financial Post showed favor upon BlackBerry when it reported that RBC analyst Mark Sue projected that BlackBerry will ship 14 million BlackBerry 10 smartphones in 21013 and increase fro his prediction of 11 million, earlier.
A report that Huawei might buy Nokia, led some to believe the company may buy BlackBerry sent BlackBery stock up. There is a security problem, however with a Chinese company buying a company that provides smartphones to the Department of Defense. A House committee, last year warned that the United States "must block acquisitions, takeovers, or mergers involving Huawei and ZTE given the threat to U.S. national security interests."
Market Watch reported that BlackBerry slowed on Wednesday due to a report from Bernstein research "“We expect RIM to miss consensus expectations for the [second half]. Our latest channel checks suggest consumer takeup is slow, in line with the weak Google search level. We also see increased risk of a slow and partial adoption of BB10 in the corporate [space]."
It appears that BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 sales in outside the United States are doing much better while in the U.S. costumers are more iPhone and Android oriented.
The BlackBerry Q10 is one of few QWERTY keyboarded smartphones available in the United States. It combines a touchscreen and predictive test for fast one-handed typing. The trackball/trackpad has been replaced with screen swipe gestures. BlackBerry and keyboard fans are very loyal to the brand.
Also in the future for BlackBerry are an entry-level cheaper BlackBerry Q5 for this summer and a new touchscreen model the BlackBerry A10 due in time for the Holidays.
The BlackBerry Q10 has a 3.1' touchscreen, 8MP camera, 16GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM, 2MP front camera and microSD card slot. It has the same specs under the hood as the BlackBerry Z10 (see how it compares) with a super enhanced QWERTY keyboard. Watch video of BlackBerry 10 features.
AT&T is selling the BlackBerry Q10 for $199.99 with a contract and $100 off with a trade-in smartphone.