To say that the competition in the
smartphone market is fierce would
be putting things mildly. So far this
year, we've witnessed the launch of
several high end devices including
the Samsung S4 », Blackberry Z10 and
Q series and the HTC One. In the
coming months, Apple is also set to
unleash its highly anticipated
iPhone 5s phones while HTC will also
roll out the HTC One mini. With
consumers sprung for choices,
industry watchers project that at the
end of the day, it will boil down to a
game of survival of the fittest brand.
With the Nigerian market however,
things differ slightly as Blackberry
still remains the device of first
choice for the majority of
smartphone users. But with the
growing popularity of android
devices and with Blackberry
Messenger; the flagship app of
Blackberry, soon to be made
available on other non Blackberry
devices can Blackberry still retain its
hold on the smartphone market in
Nigeria and indeed the rest of the
world?
Around the world, Blackberry has
recorded a significant drop in sales
and the company has tried several
major marketing ploys to boost its
sales including appointing Grammy-
award winning musician, Alicia Keys
as Global Creative Director in January
but the feedback is still largely
lukewarm with the general verdict
being that Blackberry still has some
major ground to cover mostly
because it offers much less
consumer satisfaction (unexciting
apps/features and lacklustre
durability) compared to other
smartphones. With the introduction
of the high-end Blackberry A10
device, the smartphone company
will attempt to recapture lost
ground while infusing the much-
needed pizzaz and user-friendliness
which other brands currently offer.
Although a release date for the all-
new Blackberry A10 has not been
announced, we recently got hold of
specifications of the A10 as well as
images and a high-resolution video
demonstration (done in Vietnamese)
of its functions. The device amongst
other features has a 5-inch AMOLED
display screen as opposed to the 4.2
inch/3.1 inch screen of the Z10 and
Q10 respectively. It also has an 8-
megapixel rear camera, a 2-
megapixel front camera, 2GB of RAM,
16GB of internal storage and a 2,800
mAh battery. With the screen size
and dual-camera, we are reminded
of the Samsung S4, but with all of
these and other features, can
Blackberry really get the fortune
turnaround it so desperately needs?