The BlackBerry Q5, which was unveiled in May, is expected to debut in India around 16th July as per unconfirmed sources. This smartphone is up for pre-order on the website of BlackBerry in India. But the company does not mention its price and its availability details.
BlackBerry is the third smartphone running on the new BlackBerry 10 operating system, and the second smartphone equipped with QWERTY keyboard and running BB10 OS, which is still liked by many users and sets it apart from Android smartphones and Apple’s iPhone.
BlackBerry Q5 is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz processor alongside 2GB of RAM. The smartphone comes with 8GB of internal storage, which can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD card. This smartphone is equipped with a 5-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera.. The smartphone is packed with 2,180mAh battery.
Specifications wise, BlackBerry Q5 is slightly different from BlackBerry Q10, which was launched only last month in India. BlackBerry Q10 has 16GB of internal storage compared to 8GB of Q5 and Q10 has 8MP rear camera compared to 5MP of Q5. The Q5 has a 3.1-inch LCD display, comapred to 3.1 inches LED display of Q10.
The Q5 is expected to come in four colour options – Black, White, Red and Pink. Considering that it is a mid-range smartphone, it should be priced in the range of Rs 18,000 to 20,000. But BlackBerry is in the habit of over-pricing its smartphones, which is also one of the reasons that the prospective customers are unable to buy them.
BlackBerry was criticised in India for launching its Q10 smartphone at hefty price of Rs. 44,900. Even its Z10 was overpriced and to contain the damage to some extent, Blackberry has come out with upgrade offer for Z10 and offering discount of upto Rs, 11,000 under this scheme.
If BlackBery has to push its Q5 in good numbers in highly price sensitive market in India, then they will have to price it aggressively otherwise the mid-range Android devices which are available in the price range of Rs, 18,000 will make its survival very difficult.
