Verizon Wireless announced it will begin selling the BlackBerry Z30, a 5-in. touchscreen-only smartphone, some time in November for $199.99 and a two-year service agreement.
The BlackBerry Z30 goes on sale in November for $199.99 with contract.
The large display is supported by a 2880 mAh battery that can last 25 hours with mixed usage. The device supports wireless charging.
Verizon is also selling the Z30 under its Verizon Edge plan for $22.91 per month for 24 months for qualified customers.
The Z30 supports BlackBerry 10.2 and Miracast to wirelessly connect the device to an HDTV to mirror the content on the Z30 to the larger display. A business user could arrive at a meeting and wirelessly project a presentation to a larger display, Verizon said.
The larger display of the Z30 allows a user to add a fifth row of application icons, up from four rows available on the Z10 that was released in February.
BlackBerry 10.2 adds clicking sounds for the virtual keyboard. The sounds vary, depending on what a user is typing.
The 5-in. display is based on SuperAMOLED technology with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution at 295 pixels per inch. The device runs a 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and has an 8 megapixel rear camera and a 2 megapixel front camera.
NFC for mobile payments and file exchange is supported, as well as Bluetooth 4.0.
The Z30 is 5.53 x 2.8 x .37 inches and weighs 6 ounces.
Verizon will be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the device.
BlackBerry has said it will focus on enterprise-class smartphones in the future, as it restructures its company amid layoffs and tentative plans to sell itself, most likely to go private.
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen, or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.
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