The smartphone era has not been kind to the company formerly known as RIM. Though one would have thought BlackBerry would have had an easy time when it came to all things smartphone, the company was left behind while competitors like Apple and Google took the lion's share of the consumer smartphone market. BlackBerry is betting on BlackBerry 10 to turn things around, though. The company launched the OS last Wednesday, and the first BB10 phone, the Z10, went on sale in the UK just one day later.
Six days on, it seems BlackBerry is pleasantly surprised by UK sales. According to Pocket-Lint, European Managing Director Stephen Bates told attendees at the BlackBerry Jam developer conference in Amsterdam that the Z10 is doing better than expected in the United Kingdom.
"The response we have seen exceeded all of our launch partners expectations," he's quoted as saying. "Our partners have told us that they have sold out in some of their key locations."
Indeed, demand for the phone has seen some units fetch as much as $1,700 on auction sites like eBay. The Z10 went on sale in Canada this week, but won't be hitting the United States until March. The latest rumors say it may not arrive until the end of March.
The Z10 packs a dual-core 1.5GHz CPU, a 4.2-inch display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of on board storage, an 8-megapixel camera in the back, a 2-megapixel camera up front. Be sure to check out our live blog of the event, as well as our unboxing, and our first impressions of the device.
A Brief Look at the Technical Specs of BlackBerry Z10, Q10
BB10 Interview With the QNX Boss of BlackBerry OS
Check out our hands-on with BlackBerry 10 on the Z10.
Interview With the BlackBerry Z10, Q10 Industrial Designer
A Complete Video Walkthrough of BlackBerry 10 OS
