Back in February this year, Verizon introduced budget friendly 3G prepaid plans which included the $60/month plan with 500MB of data and 2GB of data for $70/month. Both the plans include unlimited talk and texts. Now Big Red has quietly extended the amount of data allotted for each plan.

From now on, customers using BlackBerry, Android or iOS 3G smartphones will be able to enjoy 2GB of data with the $60 plan, while the $70 plan is coming with 4GB of mobile data. These new offers are available at the moment to existing customers. These won’t be available to new customers until June 6^th. And just in case you don’t know, these plans are just for 3G. There are no hints about the inclusion of LTE. And there are others around offering better plans, though everything will depend on the coverage that you get.

Are you currently using one of these plans? If yes, are you satisfied with the increase of data? Verizon’s 3G plans are expected to become cheaper while also offering more data in the future as more customers start using LTE.

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Blackberry are looking to cash-in with their new low-cost Qwerty smartphone. The Blackberry Q5 was unveiled by CEO Thorsten Heins on Tuesday in Orlando.

The Q5 features a trademark Blackberry QWERY keyboard, along with a 3.1-inch touch screen, but that’s about all we know about the entry-level handset from a hardware point of view. Blackberry have announced that the Q5 will be available in black, white, red, orange and pint and will go on sale in selected markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia from July. No pricing has been announced yet.

What’s most interesting about the Q5 is that it is clearly a budget device — something that Blackberry originally intended to keep BB10 away from for a while. What do you think of the Q5? Hope it comes stateside?

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Fans of Blackberry’s QWERTY equipped phones will be interested to hear that a new budget-oriented phone could be making an appearance next week at the Blackberry Live conference.

The news comes in the form of a leaked photo of the R10 along with purported specifications from Chinese website DGtle. According to their sources the Blackberry R10 will feature the same 3.1-inch display and 2GB RAM as the more costly Q10 but with a lower spec 5 mega-pixel camera, 8GB ROM and just an 1800mAh battery.

The R10 will be aimed at the entry-level market but would also make a great replacement for anyone wanting to update their older Curve handset. What’s interesting is that Blackberry has said that they will be focusing mostly on the high-end with BB10, so either they’ve changed their mind or they are simply billing this as their first mid-ranger. What do you think, would you be interested in a cheaper variant of the Q10? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

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It’s something that many have predicted but nobody thought would happen anytime soon. According to IDC, sales of smartphones have surpassed that of feature phones in the first quarter. Samsung is leading the race, with Apple, LG, Huawei and ZTE in the top 5.

Samsung’s shipments increased 60.7 percent to reach 70.7 million smartphones and that has helped the South Korean company to get 32.7% of the market share. Apple’s iPhone 5 helped the Mac maker to grow 6.6% to 37.4 million handsets, but their market share dropped to 17.3% from 23%.

Samsung certainly has gained by flooding the market with cheaper Android devices. And the variety of hardware configurations they bring out is an answer just about anyone’s needs (rugged S4 anyone?).

In the third spot is LG, with the Google Nexus 4 among the company’s most popular handsets. The company has 4.8 percent of the market. But where is Nokia, which until last year was a global leader for 14 years? Although their Lumia shipments have grown, that hasn’t helped them with market share. Nokia and BlackBerry have been pushed out of the top 5 by Huawei (4.6%) and ZTE (4.2%).

Nokia, as you might know, is very fond of feature phones, but smartphones have taken over the stage. Nokia should evolve and expand its smartphone line if they plan to get back to the top again. Kevin Restivo, IDC senior research analyst, says, “Phone users want computers in their pockets. The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away. As a result, the balance of smartphone power has shifted to phone makers that are most dependent on smartphones“.

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Blackberry 10 is still very much a new OS, but that’s not stopping the company from working hard to improving what they’ve brought to the table. Blackberry 10.1 has now arrived as a Beta for developers, bringing with it quite a few improvements.

Thanks to the efforts of CrackBerry quite a few of the changes have already been documented, though there still might be surprise features that arrive when 10.1 actually starts rolling out to users.

One of the more interesting features is the addition of HDR photography capabilities, which exists on other platforms already and is very useful. It essentially combines one underexposed shot, one shot with normal exposure and one overexposed shot to create photos with the best lighting possible.

Other updates in BB10.1 include PIN-to-PIN messaging through Blackberry Hub, a new way to more easily check for BlackBerry World updates, the ability to paste phone numbers into dialpad and much more.
For a full list of everything currently known to be heading to the first major update to Blackberry 10, head on over to CrackBerry.

Do you own a new BB10 device? What do you think of the experience so far? How does it compare to older Blackberry devices or even how it compares to rivals running Windows Phone, Android or iOS?

The post Blackberry 10.1 Beta Arrives to Developers, Brings Several New Features appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It seems that the Blackberry Q10 is on its way to Canada on April 30th, landing on Rogers and perhaps a few other carriers the same day.

At the moment, Rogers has the only confirmed launch date for the keyboard-equipped BB10 handset. For those that need a reminder of what the Q10 brings to the table, the phone obviously uses its more traditional QWERTY design as its biggest call to fame. Beyond that, it has a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, a 3.1-inch AMOLED 720×720 pixel display, 16GB storage, microSD and both front and rear cameras. For the front you get a 2MP cam, the back gets an 8MP.

Unfortunately, no word on exactly how much the phone will set you back when it lands later this month. Still, if you love traditional Blackberry handsets but want the power of BB10, this could be the perfect phone for you?

What do you think of Blackberry’s latest efforts with the Z10 and Q10? Excited for what the future holds or do you feel it just isn’t enough to compete with its rivals at Microsoft, Google and Apple?

The post Blackberry Q10 Coming to Canada on April 30th appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Remember when Blackberry announced they would have around 100,000 apps around launch of the Blackberry 10? It looks like they have now got there and have decided to celebrate by adding a few new higher-profile apps to the mix.

Blackberry 10 users now will find themselves having access to the Kindle, OpenTable and Wall Street Journal apps and eBay, Skype, Soundhound and Viber are preparing to launch in the next few weeks.

Although 100,000 isn’t much compared to iOS or Android, it isn’t half bad and does put it closer to Windows Phone’s app count. This is certainly a number worth celebrating, of course it also seems pretty crazy to think that Blackberry was able to pull off this number so quickly.

The truth is that they got there two different ways. First, there are some good Blackberry apps, but there are also quite a few awful ones as well. Second, the vast majority of the apps aren’t natively designed from the ground-up for Blackberry and instead are Android ports.

That said, no matter how you look at it, 100,000 apps (native or not) is a good start. If Blackberry wants to be more successful in the long-haul they need to attract more A+++ apps from iOS and Andriod as well as get more native apps, but you have to start somewhere.

What do you think of Blackberry 10 and their app selection, impressed or not?

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After missing out on the iPhone yet again, it looks like T-Mobile will be doing more business with BlackBerry in 2013. More specifically, a report from N4BB claims that T-Mobile will be carrying the BlackBerry Q10 come May 2013.

Since the release of BlackBerry 10, the Z10, and the Q10, it was believed that T-Mobile would have the BlackBerry Z10 while Sprint offered the BlackBerry Q10. However, a representative from the BlackBerry Experience Forum revealed to N4BB that the Blackberry Q10 would be arriving on T-Mobile sometime in May of 2013.

If you have not been keeping up on all things BlackBerry, here is the rundown on the second smartphone to have BlackBerry 10:

• Full QWERTY keyboard (physical)
• Dual-Core 1.5GHz – Snapdragon S4 Plus
• 3.1”, SuperAMOLED display, 720 x 720 resolution at 330 PPI
• 8MP rear facing camera, Auto Focus, 5X digital zoom, 1080p HD video recording, 2MP front facing camera, 3X digital zoom, 720p HD video recording
• 2GB RAM, 16GB Internal Storage, microSD Slot up to 64GB
• Dual Band 802.11 a/b/g/n, 2.4/5GHz, 4G Mobile Hotspot
• Assisted, Autonomous, and Simultaneous GPS
• BlackBerry NS1, 2100mAh Removable Battery
• Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Proximity, Gyroscope, Ambient light sensor
• NFC, microUSB, microHDMI-Out, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, 4G LTE
• Dimensions (LxWxD): 119.6mm x 66.8mm x 10.35mm

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When it comes to Blackberry 10, so far all we have seen is high-end devices, with Blackberry 7 devices making up the low and mid-ranges. Now CEO Thorsten Heins has clarified that this isn’t going to be changing.

“You will not see us getting into the 50-, 60- buck phone segment. This is not BlackBerry”. That means midrange and highrange is all you will get.

Is this a smart move though? True, Blackberry has typically attracted business folks and the elite. That said, with the iPhone, Android handsets and many others breathing down Blackberry’s neck, branching out beyond this image wouldn’t necessarily be a bad move.

Reaching out to the lower end market with a highly capable OS could have actually helped win over some new fans, while the expensive price of the BB10-based Z10 might alienate some of those users in the developing world, one of the markets where Blackberry is most popular.

What do you think of this news, does it surprise you that Blackberry is targeting the high end and mid-range only? Will this prove to be a mistake in the long run?

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Looks like the long awaited release of the BlackBerry Z10 may be shortly coming to an end for those in the United States.  BlackBerry recently tweated about the launch saying, “BlackBerry 10 will be available across the U.S. in a few short weeks”.

At this time we don’t have an exact date for the release or which carriers will be offering the phone. What we do know is that we expect a Z10 launch on T-Mobile sometime mid March, and a Verizon unveil possibly in April.  Previously leaked photos of the Z10 did show it sporting the Verizon tag, so we expect it sooner than later.  Stay tuned for more details as specific dates and details get released.

Who has been patiently waiting for the BlackBerry Z10 to finally drop?

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