BlackBerry today announced the Z30, a new smartphone running BlackBerry OS 10.2 that has a 5.0-inch Super AMOLED 720p HD display and a dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor with quad-core Adreno graphics.
The Z30 features stereo speakers and BlackBerry Natural Sound, which the company says improves the quality of BBM Voice and BBM Video chats. BlackBerry is using what it calls the BlackBerry Paratek Antenna, a new antenna design that improves voice and data performance in low-coverage areas. The Z30 also boasts 25 hours of active use thanks to the large, 2,880mAh battery. Other hardware features include an 8-megapixel main camera and 2-megapixel user-facing camera; LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, dual-band Wi-Fi, and GPS; and 16GB of on-board storage with support for microSD cards up to 64GB.
The BlackBerry 10.2 operating system makes some changes to BlackBerry Hub, which now learns which conversations and social media messages are most important to the owner and prioritizes them. BlackBerry Messenger now provides previews of incoming messages as they arrive, even when using other apps. The previews can be dismissed or opened.
The BlackBerry Z30 will first go on sale in the U.K. and Middle East later this month. It is expected to reach other regions before the holidays.
BlackBerry said that BlackBerry OS 10.2 will be made available to the Z10, Q10, and Q5 smartphones in October.
