By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
BlackBerry 10 coming soon and Rogers is all in. The carrier announced today that reservations for the as of yet unnanounced BlackBerry 10 devices is open so folks who have been waiting can now put their name on the list for when the devices and the new OS roll out on January 30th.
I also just received my press invitation to the January 30th Toronto launch of BlackBerry 10, which is concurrent with other events in New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Johannesburg and Dubai.
From what I've seen of BlackBerry 10, it is extremely touch and gesture focused and mostly intuitive. Some of the outstanding features so far are the new predictive keyboard, the much improved browser which also has a reading mode that cuts out all the images and formatting, the superb multitasking as well as the Balance feature that divvies up personal and corporate settings and apps.
From what I have learned through sources as Research in Motion is that there will be at least two BlackBerry 10 smartphones launching. The first is the touch-screen enabled device similar to the Dev Alpha B we demoed below and the one with a touchscreen plus a QWERTY keyboard will be launched a few weeks later.
Rogers is the first to offer customers BlackBerry 10 in early 2013 on the Rogers LTE network, and priority access to beat the line and reserve a device starting today through the Rogers Reservation System. Rogers customers will be among the first in the world to reserve BlackBerry 10 devices in advance of retail availability.
"Building on our history of innovative firsts, we are excited to offer our customers the opportunity to be among the first in the world to reserve their BlackBerry 10 device," said John Boynton, executive vice president marketing, chief marketing officer, Rogers Communications.
The Rogers Reservation System is available to current Rogers wireless customers across Canada. Customers can reserve a device by visiting Rogers.com under My Account. Full details about BlackBerry 10 including, pricing, availability and specifications, will be announced in early 2013.