[News] Blackberry 10 announcements and recap *UPDATED*

Well folks - its finally here.  Its January 30th, and the new generation of Blackberry devices have been announced.  There's a lot of news about everything, and I'm trying to bring as much as I can, as concise as I can, in a relatively short and easy to read article.  I'll give it a whirl, but if you have specific questions, or are looking for live coverage of the event, give the folks over at BGR a click, as they are live at the event.  But for those of you that want a pretty solid overview of what's happening with Blackberry, read on.

[Rumor] Blackberry Z10 device specs leak out

In more Blackberry 10 related news, slides of the training manual for the Z10 have presented more details of the specs of the device, including a 4.2 inch HD display (1280x768), Snapdragon processor, LTE & NFC, as well as 16GB of internal storage.  Other goodies include 2MB of RAM, a 2MP front facing camera, and 8MP rear camera with a whopping 5x optical zoom.  A reported 1800mAh battery powers it all, and (as any who used the old school Blackberry knows) it should easily get the average power user through a couple days of usage.


The official RIM press conference is still scheduled for 01/30/2013.  A non-official photo of the all touch screen device is below.  Enjoy!

BB Z10 - courtesy of BGR

*Source:  BGR

[Rumor] Canadian carrier reports strong BB10 pre-orders

With the end of the month rapidly approaching, and with it the BB10 device and software announcement, early feedback from Rogers Wireless in Canada is encouraging for the embattled company from Waterloo.  According to the report from Rogers, reservations began in mid-December for folks interested in purchasing the new Blackberry handset - and the registration numbers appear to be "strong" in Rogers opinion.  And more registrations continue daily.  Since no specific numbers for these pre-orders were given, it doesn't mean much.  But it should be encouraging to RIM fans.

Early reviews of the new BB10 operating system have been mixed, with some positives and some disappointments.  But for my money, I'm pretty intrigued, and would very much like to see if Verizon gets a new BB device.  And if I'd consider purchasing one, I'm sure that lots more Blackberry fans would too.  January 30th is the scheduled date of the RIM announcement...it can't get here fast enough!

*Source:  BGR

[Special Feature]Fearless Predictions for 2013

Shawn and I thought it would be fun to do a predictions piece for 2013 so we would be able to come back and laugh at ourselves when none of it comes true.  These opinions are solely ours, and have not been put forth with any insider information from any OEM.  Most of these actually have no basis in fact whatsoever.  But with that in mind, here are our fearless 2013 predictions:

Sean's Predictions:

1) Apple will release an iPhone 5S that looks virtually identical to the iPhone 5.  The internet will decry the  new phone and say Apple has lost its way.  Tech sites and blogs will write editorials expressing their disappointment.  Apple will sell as many as they can produce.

Shawn's Response:
I'm probably on board with this one, considering the years and years of history we have of Apple to fall back on.  I'm really not sure where Apple takes their iPhone from here though...even thinnerer and lighterer?

World Exclusive: the iPhone 5S will look exactly like this