BlackBerry Z3 Launched In India For INR 15,990

The BlackBerry has launched the company’s latest budget smartphone Z3 in India at an initial price tag of INR 15,990 and it would go on sale across India starting from 2nd July. It would be available for pre-book with eCommerce retailers TheMobileStore, Flipkart and BlackBerry exclusive stores starting from today, 25th June to July 2nd. Flipkart offers Rs 1,000 voucher for all pre-bookings and it will be credited into Flipkart wallet. TheMobileStore is offering Rs 1,000 voucher that will be used on Z3. In addition to this, TheMobileStore is also offering 7.5% discount for ICICI debit card holders between July 1st and 10th.

Commenting on the launch, Sunil Lalvani, Managing Director for India at BlackBerry said,

“The new BlackBerry Z3 offers consumer engaging user experience with all the features of Blackberry 10 combined in one powerful smartphone. The BlackBerry Z3 is also the first smartphone to be introduced from our strategic partnership with Foxconn and it further strengthens our commitment to enhance our devices portfolio. BlackBerry Z3 is the ultimate smartphone that gives users more ways to connect, share and communicate, providing the best tool for secure, reliable communications and collaboration with friends, family and co-workers.”

Adding to it more, BlackBerry India MD Sunil Lalvani said, that the phone has been designed keeping today’s India and its requirements in mind.

Speaking at the launch event, BlackBerry India product head Advait Vaidya said, that the company has brought in Android app compatibility because users have asked for this feature.

“You can download apps from third-party app store and they will work. Going forward, Amazon app store will come pre-installed in devices with BB 10.3 OS,. Blackberry is quite confident that this will add to the appeal of their new devices for Indian customers. Vaidya said they will have in-shop promoters to help people understand how to load Android apps, “though we don’t explicitly promote it”.

This means that the BlackBerry Z3 allow users to install Android apps in their smartphone and within few months BB 10 users will be able to access Amazon App Store directly from their devices.

If you do not know, it is the first BlackBerry device that was made by Foxconn and the phone offers a lot of content and includes apps like Wonobo, a Google StreetView-like mapping service covering top cities. The phone comes with a keyboard that supports Hindi, English as well as Hinglish.

In terms of specifications, BlackBerry Z3 sports a 5-inch qHD display with resolution of 540 x 960 pixels at 220 ppi and offers an aspect ratio of 16:9. It is powered by 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 MSM8230 processor which is coupled with Aderno 305 GPU. It has 1.5GB RAM and 8GB internal memory out of which only 4GB is available to users. The internal memory can be expanded further up to 32GB via microSD card. It runs on latest BlackBerry operating system, i.e, 10.2.1 operating system.

On the imaging front, it comes with 5-megapixel rear-camera with LED flash and 1.1-megapixel front-facing camera.

It packs a massive 2,500mAh non-removable battery which BlackBerry claims is good enough for 15 hours of talk time and up to 16.2 days (384 hours) standby. It has usual connectivity options like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, GPS, NFC and Micro-USB.

The BlackBerry Z3 smartphone comes preloaded with BlackBerry services such as Blackberry Hub, BBM, Time Shift, Story Maker, camera features and BB10 browser. It also features a version of BlackBerry Maps that offers 2D maps, local search and 3D voice guided turn-by-turn directions for uses in India.

In India, BlackBerry Z3 will face stiff competition from the likes of Motorola Moto G and I think that BlackBerry priced the handset wrongly.

Specifications of BlackBerry Z3