SINGAPORE — The long awaited BlackBerry Z10 smartphone will be launched the first week of next month — specifically on March 7. If reports are to believed, the handset had made record sales in Canada and the United Kingdom, with some retail partners saying they had sold out in the first weekend.

It’s not difficult to see why. We were able to get a sneak peek at the touchscreen model ahead of its launch with Senior Director, Asia-Pacific Product Management, BlackBerry Damian Tay. At first impressions, the Z10 is a sleek device that is weighted nicely and feels solid. A rubberised back cover provides adequate grip yet does not look cheap.

BLACKBERRY HUB

Pop the hood, and the spanking new BlackBerry 10 operating system growls. Developed for the busy executive on the move, BB10 offers several features, such as the BlackBerry Hub that consolidates communication apps such as email, messenging and chat services with calendar events, contacts and even social networking. In the example BlackBerry showed, Mr Tay demonstrated how he could check the LinkedIn profiles of attendees on a meeting penned in his calendar app. He could also see recent email conversations, and contact details as well as recent projects they had worked on — all without leaving the hub.

BLACKBERRY PEEK, BALANCE

Continuing the efficiency pitch, Mr Tay then showed the BB Peek, which lets you check if a new notification is crucial or not before launching into the full app. BB Balance partitions personal and work data so corporations can wipe out sensitive data when the employee leaves, and employees can rest assured they will not send embarrassing pictures of themselves at a party to a work contact — a win-win situation. It also makes the phone conducive for the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) culture; employees can choose to get a Z10 as a personal phone and let IT segregate the work and personal portions, ending the need to carry two phones — one for work and one for personal use.

SPECS

The Z10 runs on 1.5 GHz dual-core processors, offers 2GB RAM with 16GB Flash memory. The 4.2-inch screen offers 1280 x 768 resolution at 356 points per inch (PPI) and comes with a micro HDMI port to connect to TV or projector, a removable microSD slot and a USB 2.0 port for charging and transferring data. Nothing radical in specifications but it gets the job done. The Z10 also offers a removable 1800 mAH battery, giving power users the option to swap out batteries instead of carrying power packs. Unfortunately, an hour-long demo was not enough to test the durability of its battery.

BLACKBERRY KEYBOARD

The BlackBerry keyboard is also a new ground-up design. It is said to be the fastest, with the ability to recognise pressure so two buttons — one as your finger lifts off and one when your finger presses — can be detected at once. However, the keys still looks a little small, especially for my banana fingers. To make messaging even faster, the BB Keyboard has a flick function that suggests words in your message context that you can flick onto the screen from individual keys.

GESTURE

Another thing you would notice is that the Z10 does not have any buttons. Gesture is the mode of navigation and while it seems intuitive enough, it remains to be seen if it is easy to get accustomed to.

CAMERA

However, the sleek device is let down by its mediocre 8 megapixel rear camera. Pictures taken on the camera seemed a little dull and dim compared to my iPhone 5. Its front camera, however, while not fantastic, is quite good. Video calls are clear, crisp and the ability to share screens while on video calls lets you share images immediately while on call.

BLACKBERRY MESSENGER

While BlackBerry continues to ensure there will be no more outages like the three-day one in 2011, they have also continued to improve the experience of BBM. Besides providing free chats among BlackBerry users and the crystal clear voice calls on BBM Voice, it now offers video chats on BBM. Besides BBM, BlackBerry said Whatsapp has committed to developing a BB10 version of the popular app. It also offers chat services on GChat, Facebook Chat, IM and Yahoo!. Messaging app, Line, is also available for BB10.

VERDICT

As a smartphone, the BlackBerry Z10 does not stand out from the pack. While the BB10 OS is an improvement over its last BlackBerry system, it merely catches up with the industry players at this point. However, it is a superior BlackBerry smartphone and fans of the brand will be happy with the Z10 upgrade. Corporations looking for company-owned devices will also be happy with its ability to segregate work and leisure.

The BlackBerry Z10 will retail at the recommended price of S$918. All three telcos will be accepting pre-orders and pre-registrations from today, BlackBerry said.

UPDATE: SingTel and StarHub have announced pre-registering details as well as pricing plans for the BlackBerry Z10. For details, visit www.singtelshop.com/bbz10 and www.starhub.com/z10 respectively. M1 has also released their BlackBerry Z10 pre-registration website at www.m1.com.sg/bbz10