[jeffbb10]

The iPhone 6 is to have a 5 inch screen, so even they are getting with the times and market. I hate iPhone but I'm just saying they are getting with the times. Keyboard is not in the time of 2014, those days are long gone.

Posted via CB10

[DenverRalphy]

Specs alone dont sell a device just ask HTC. Why have 3,4,5 gb ram when BB10 does need it? Why have even octo core?

A beautifully design phone with a nice sharp screen, great battery life and an innovative spin on the qwerty keyboard will get people talking.

Only a keyboard makes BlackBerry unique.

Q10SQN100-3/10.2.1.2228, Z30, Z10, iP5, SGS3

On the flip side... why does BB10 seem to require more resources than their competitors than the Playbook has to offer if BB10 is so efficient and powerful? If your argument held true, the PB should be running BB10 no problem.

[Brutal Efficiency]

Of course Chen will be trying to have every device as the 'turn around device'.

I don't think that there will be a 'single' device that does the turnaround for BlackBerry. It will be an entire line-up that is attractive to the general public.

It's the general perception of BlackBerry that needs to be improved. That won't be reversed with one device, but rather the entire fleet.

The Q20 should appeal and greatly please a particular niche that almost departed BlackBerry. It won't be massive sales as some people think.

Z3 will be a little more widespread. I think the Z50 will help push Z3 sales due to the halo effect.

If there is a prototype Q50 (Windemere) with the touch-keys and gestures on the keyboard with a 5 inch square screen, I think it'll appeal to a wider audience than the Q20 and hopefully will pull people back to the QWERTY market that BlackBerry has carved out for itself. If it doesn't sell much, it DEFINITELY will bring lots of attention to BlackBerry, and hopefully the innovation will be portrayed positively.

If they are able to successfully launch BES12 to bridge the gap between BES5 and BES10, it should help drive sales.

Soon we will see Stickers and how well they do for BlackBerry. Hopefully a good positive $$$ stream for them, however small.

I do hope that there is some tablet in the works. If not, releasing Fuse and Dashboard for iPad and Windows would bring great positive light to BlackBerry.


We will see.

Quality Poultry - Channel PIN: C004B64D1

[Bbnivende]

The iPhone 6 is to have a 5 inch screen, so even they are getting with the times and market. I hate iPhone but I'm just saying they are getting with the times. Keyboard is not in the time of 2014, those days are long gone.

Posted via CB10

Yes and no. Yes the PK phone will likely always have a very small part of the market but at least BlackBerry owns that small market. With better phones BlackBerry might sell 20 million a year. The question is whether a 3.5 inch screen is big enough.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app

[wincyUt]

Yes and no. Yes the PK phone will likely always have a very small part of the market but at least BlackBerry owns that small market. With better phones BlackBerry might sell 20 million a year. The question is whether a 3.5 inch screen is big enough.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app

Do you think 20 million phones a year is very realistic? That's quite a leap, don't you think?

[spikesolie]

On the flip side... why does BB10 seem to require more resources than their competitors than the Playbook has to offer if BB10 is so efficient and powerful? If your argument held true, the PB should be running BB10 no problem.

To be fair I think the dev alpha ran on 1gb ram, I might be wrong but I think it did.. which brings me to the point. Former or current ios users who have iPhone 4 and 4s, when they upgraded to ios6-7 it started being laggy. I don't think bb10 couldn't run on 1 gb, its more about the "experience " of it so to speak. The reason I felt like upgrading my idevice in the first place apart from a dying battery was the incredible lag. It was just bad!! Been on a z10 for a year now and enjoying it. All I'm saying is they could probably find a way to make it run on less memory, the result just won't be as pleasant

From zee coolest flicking smartphone ever

[Ecm]

Temporarily closed.

[Ecm]

Thread re-opened after the worst of the off-topic comments have been removed (and posts where those comments were quoted).

[INFO]For the benefit of those who have lost track, the topic of this thread is: "Is John Chen's turnaround device Z3 or Q20 or what future phone?"[/INFO]

Let's stick to the topic.

Please consider this excerpt from the Community Rules and Guidelines when posting:

• Be a pro. Don’t get into arguments over dumb things. If someone responds in a poor or rude fashion, ignore it. If you notice a pattern of rude or poor behavior from a particular member, report them to our moderators. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. In a nutshell, ‘think before you post’.

[jeffbb10]

I agree that specs aren't everything but it sells. That's what people buy.

Posted via CB10

[Bbnivende]

Do you think 20 million phones a year is very realistic? That's quite a leap, don't you think?

That is what Thor told me! ... Yes, you are probably correct. My thinking was that if they can sell almost 3 million not very good PK devices now per quarter then there is the potential for 4 million much better devices per quarter. They would need both a cheap and high end Q20.

[badiyee]

Do you think 20 million phones a year is very realistic? That's quite a leap, don't you think?

I doubt that is possible if BlackBerry is hoping to pit those on q20 and z3 alone. I previously did some rough calculations (may have been deleted) and proposed that attempting to bank on z3 as an overnight success that will pull the company into black from red singlehandedly is, although possible not very achievable unless results are overly positive.

Posted via CB on BB10

[badiyee]

No, you don't have all android apps. Not even close. Yes you have access to a good chunk, but there are a significant number that don't work at all because of no Google Play Services support, and many some that simply just don't play nice with the runtime

It's good to be excited by the ability to run some Android apps. But don't make it out to be more than it actually is.

The general euphoria about Nokia X on where I live, (not the entire country, can't say for that) was based on the premise that Nokia X, although released to our country slower than other countries held the promise of to get the best of MSFT services and Nokia services on top of a heavily skinned Android.

Thus the initial perception was:
- is an android (technically true)
- has access to Nokia's services (which are, arguably much better than google services in certain areas, such as the mapping technology, AT least for this locality)
- looks and feels like WP phone
- will have access to limited, but can be fixed apps. (apparently some quarters in XDA dev are now racing in two directions),

a) making Nokia X GAPPS compatible by installing GAPPS
b) making the Nokia services compatible in general Android devices by repackaging those Nokia services app.

The eerie thing about this is that option C, which is modify the Nokia/MSFT store so that the apps that were initially repackaged for Android would run for Nokia X (with all the modified to MSFT services) would again be enabled to run in any normal Android store has caught to a hiccup of sorts. I don't understand, but instead of working on this, a number in this camp jumped over to option B.


Now, again, in parallel to Z3, there is a different buzz (I actually think this is highly illegal and misleading, but sellers do what they do, lie and deceive in order to push what brings more money into their pockets), but for usd200 unlocked, and without contract (I probably dare to even suggest that there are NO, absolutely no "phones+contracts" package that can offer a better package than buy your own phone unlocked then select your prefered plan with carriers) from retailers (not carriers), the mechanics around the BB10 Z3 buzz is different, in a way:

1) full access to BlackBerry World
2) Can install APKs and Modified APKs (i don't want to talk about this, but in itself presents a niche pirate's market, but good money for the same retailers that push the hardware, you see. That's why Android remains a very, very profitable market for these guys)
3) C-A-D-I-E-O-T (i like to call it this way, confirmed assured destruction in event of theft). On an unrooted Android, its easy to just wipe and use the device. On a BlackBerry, much more difficult. And chances are you can destroy your stolen BlackBerry with password better than any other device. And for good reasons as well. its confirmed, mutually assured destruction. The thief would be just hanging around with a bricked device (or locked beyond redemption).
4) hardware per price item. This one is funny, when I had a conversation with another reseller, again on the Nokia X situation and the Lenovo device situation. But BlackBerry hasn't confirmed how much are they paying per device on commission, so resellers are still not too warming up to this, understandably.


But to put your line in... People actually make a big deal out of it, despite BB10 is not fully GAPP compliant.

[bekkay]

To be fair I think the dev alpha ran on 1gb ram, I might be wrong but I think it did.. which brings me to the point. Former or current ios users who have iPhone 4 and 4s, when they upgraded to ios6-7 it started being laggy. I don't think bb10 couldn't run on 1 gb, its more about the "experience " of it so to speak. The reason I felt like upgrading my idevice in the first place apart from a dying battery was the incredible lag. It was just bad!! Been on a z10 for a year now and enjoying it. All I'm saying is they could probably find a way to make it run on less memory, the result just won't be as pleasant

From zee coolest flicking smartphone ever

That's exactly the point. Android (especially 4.4), iOS7, and WP8 run absolutely fine on 1GB.

[badiyee]

That's exactly the point. Android (especially 4.4), iOS7, and WP8 run absolutely fine on 1GB.

The base minimum boosted up. I think back in 2011 when I grabbed an Acer a500, people were thinking "1GB? Nuts!" but that was just the introduction of honeycomb 3.0 A lot of optimization happened. 4.0 with project butter, etc etc.

Not so far ago, Lumia520 with the 512mb stole some thunder as the best selling Lumia of all times. Then when the newer software updates came, they said "sorry, Lumia 520 with 512mb of RAM, there will be a LOT of optimization needed to do, and we'll see who are the devs willing to go through that. Otherwise, yer' out".


ah crap. forgot to add:

I mean, the idea is that, software gets optimized, but you don't see the same hardware manufacturers GO ahead and provide support for the older hardware, business decisions.

Else somebody would still be sporting a GS2 with Kit Kat, by Samsung just because they can. (I mean, there are Kit Kat, but its from 3rd party devs, not exactly from Samsung, but we know they can)

[kylef5993]

I agree that specs aren't everything but it sells. That's what people buy.

Posted via CB10

I disagree. The only specs people know about are megapixels. The average consumer doesn't know anything about specs.

I think what really grabs people's attention is useless features like how you can hover your finger over a s4 and it creates a lighting effect, how galaxy phones can follow your eyes, drama shots, etc etc.

[birdman_38]

I disagree. The only specs people know about are megapixels. The average consumer doesn't know anything about specs.

I think what really grabs people's attention is useless features like how you can hover your finger over a s4 and it creates a lighting effect, how galaxy phones can follow your eyes, drama shots, etc etc.

Nobody uses 3/4 of those features though.

[Minhaaj Rehman]

According to Terry Pender of The Record.com "Next week, Chen flies to Indonesia for the official launch of the Jakarta Z3 — the new large touch-screen smartphone BlackBerry produced in partnership with Taiwan-based Foxconn for the Indonesian market."

So my hunch is that Z3 will be the turnaround device for BlackBerry. Although this low end phone will face serious competition, I am willing to hedge that because it will be priced under $200 and is bsically same phone as the Z30 (save for, the pixel density), plus it will have OS 10.2.1.29XX and latest BBM with stickers, BlackBerry can't go wrong in this emerging market.
BlackBerry's turnaround icing on the cake will come later in the year when the Classic Q20 is launched.

Which is the device that you think will turnaround the dismal market share for BlackBerry? Or do think it is a lost cause?

Talking numbers and emerging markets, i am couple of countries (seas?) from Indonesia. Pakistan is also an emerging market for BB and i can say right away, price is the key factor in emerging markets. Anything under $150 dollar will work for me without losing much that i could get on Android devices that is. BB Email is best and productivity is awesome. Unfortunately we have just too many young people who would rather watch movies on phones and they make up the majority of this market. What was the phone that kept BB alive last quarter? Yes, you guessed it right. Make Blackberry Bold 9900!! OS7 devices are what we want. Following iPhone path is a beaten strategy. Do what you do best!

[Supa_Fly1]

No I'd what's he is actually doing - try and grow services and software as quickly as possible when trying to hold mobile as a declining revenue stream for the near future and offloading risk to partners like foxconn - I think the foxconn deal is a try before you buy deal*.


* Although one that now is likely making less sense to Foxconn now that WP is license free.

I don't see ANY Services growing! All I see is services being split up and shown as potential revenue streams: eBBM (still BBM with more encryption), BES12 is still BES10+BES5 finally unified+WP support added (again something that should very been added when BES10 was released! Software: only QNX Cloud is completely new (after the MDM trial they offered in Aloha back in August 2013).

Nothing else on record is a NEW service or software stream yet to grow BlackBerry!
To me it looks like Chen is priming BlackBerry to reduce costs in line with making BlackBerry more self sustaining over a 12/24mth period and ripening it for a FULL/Part+Parcel sale!! Even if his main goal is to strengthen BlackBerry the tactics are the same for this time line. It's after end of fiscal 2015 will we know if these steps all worked.

BlackBerry Q10 ? & Full Metal CB10!

[qwerty4ever]

I'm inclined to believe Chen's future vision for BlackBerry is BBOS 7.

Posted via CB10 on BlackBerry Q5

[badiyee]

I'm inclined to believe Chen's future vision for BlackBerry is BBOS 7.

Posted via CB10 on BlackBerry Q5

How so, if compared to the Z3 and Q20, that you're saying that BBOS7 becomes the future vision?

[belfastdispatcher]

I'm inclined to believe Chen's future vision for BlackBerry is BBOS 7.

Posted via CB10 on BlackBerry Q5

I think Chen's future vision is what he manages to sell more, customers will decide for him.


#believeinfilm

[AthenaSmith]

I think the Z3 and the Q20 are each targeting different kinds of consumers/markets, and it's their combined favorable reception that will help BlackBerry. Add to that the rumoured all-touch beast device (Z50?), then hopefully we can see some improvement.

Posted via CB10

[Solar 77]

I really hope that the company allows for a focus group discussion of its core and potential customers. Though it seems like John Chen is listening to the people that he talked to while traveling.

He's the one that said "if the customer likes it, then it's the right thing to do." yes?

Posted via CB10

[--TommesJay--]

I think this thread is more than fitting, so I'd like to point out what really grinds my gears.

Why is there ALWAYS this exception of "THE NEXT BIG THING"? No matter which manufacturer we're talking about, no matter which platform, no matter which forum or publication. Ever since Apple introduced the original iPhone almost everything this industry is about is "the next big thing", "the next giant leap", "the iPhone killer", "the next revolution", "the next one hit that changes everything". Like in any other industry, smartphone OEMs serve different markets and customers and often times you see differentiated product portfolios that aim at different market segments. But suddenly whenever a device is rumored it or underway it has to be the next big thing, the one turnaround device. Let me break to you that this isn't how it works - not for BlackBerry (especially not BlackBerry), not for HTC, not for Sony. It's about building a brand and a perception through well-aimed operations and it takes time. PERIOD.

Whenever a new device is rumored, leaks or gets announced the press is all over this one-shot-turnaround -approach and every product BlackBerry is planning is understood as their next attempt to go after iPhones and Galaxys. It's driving me crazy. BlackBerry has THEIR own market segments they serve and that is low end emerging markets with the Z3 and their current loyal base of legacy QWERTY devices (mainly enterprise) with the Q20. The goal isn't to change everything over night, but to place thought through products for certain market segments for certain customers, in order to go further FROM THERE. Get after those consumers in emerging markets where BlackBerry is still a strong brand, compete with Android and Windows Phone there. Convert your existing user base in the enterprise sector to BB10 with a more familiar and reliable and robust product like the Q20 with the tool belt. Grow, even slow, where you can. Get back to profitability, even if tharlt means the company as a whole has to shrink strongly. GET BACK TO A STRONG POSITION, EVEN IF THAT POSITION IS TINY. Then build UP again.

The first and primary goal in marketing is plain and simple:

Serve your customers and deliver value to them better than the competition.

A Q20 along with BES 12 does this for QWERTY enterprise customers and a Z3 at a $199 price tag off contract likely does this for Malaysia (or the Philippines?).

So let's drink a cup of coffee and see what happens next.

[kylef5993]

Nobody uses 3/4 of those features though.

I completely agree but it's not about using the features. It's about wowing customers. I remember seeing those features and thinking they were cool and remembering the device just because of those. I bought a galaxy note 10.1 and never used them but they forced me to remember Galaxy devices.