The news is out that the BlackBerry Z3 will be here soon, probably this month itself, and prices by the market have been speculated at around Rs 11,300. However, the final price is yet to be listed by BlackBerry since the Indonesian selling price won’t be valid in India due to various taxes.
On the other hand, the older sibling, the BlackBerry Z10 has faced a massive price cut from a selling price of almost Rs 45,000 plus to below Rs 17,000 today. While Flipkart has the Z10 listed for Rs 16,990 and Amazon putting it up for Rs 15,990, some eBay shops are offering the same for as low as Rs 13,299. So is opting for the BlackBerry Z10 over the BlackBerry Z3 a better deal? Let’s find out.
Yesterday we informed that BlackBerry OS v10 will be soon releasing a new update, v10.3, which will be applicable for BlackBerry Z10 users too. This new version release will also include the Amazon App Store, which will bring additional 200,000 Android-based apps for BlackBerry users. The move will be a bonus for BlackBerry to boost its sales graphs and for users who can now install a plethora of new apps.
With the BlackBerry Z3 launching at a lower price with a newer chipset and the BlackBerry Z10 already out there with the price getting lower, the question is ‘would the Z10 be a better option over the Z3?’ Let’s look at the two smartphones with a little detail.
The BlackBerry Z10 features a 4.2-inch display with a resolution of 768x1280 pixels and a pixel density of 335ppi. The handset is built using a Qualcomm MSM8960 Snapdragon S4 chipset featuring a dual-core 1.5 GHz Krait processor, an Adreno 225 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The internal storage lies at 16GB, expandable up to 32GB with a micro SD card. The rear camera has an 8MP sensor while the front has a 2MP camera. The connectivity options include 3G, LTE, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n dual band, Bluetooth v4.0, NFC and GPS. Sensors include accelerometer, gyro, proximity and compass. The battery fuelling the BlackBerry Z10 is an 1800mAh, which can deliver up to 10 hours of talk time. Lastly, the device is 9mm thick and weighs in at 137.5 grams.
The BlackBerry Z3 features a 5-inch display with a resolution of 540x960 pixels and a pixel density of 220ppi. The handset is built using a Qualcomm MSM8230 Snapdragon 400 chipset featuring a dual-core 1.2 GHz Krait processor, an Adreno 305 GPU and 1.5GB of RAM. The internal storage lies at 8GB, expandable up to 32GB with a micro SD card. The rear camera has a 5MP sensor while the front has a 1.1MP camera. The connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0, NFC and GPS. Sensors include accelerometer and proximity. The battery fuelling the BlackBerry Z10 is a 2500mAh, which can deliver up to 15hours of talk time. Lastly, the device is 9.3mm thick and weighs in at 164 grams.
If we have to compare the two handsets, the features reveal the places such as the display resolution, camera, internal memory and storage, wireless connectivity and missing LTE, where the manufacturer has cut corners to bring down the cost. While the Z10 has a better resolution, the Z3 offers a larger screen. The internal RAM and the camera specifications are also lower. On the other hand, the chipset on the Z3 is newer and better as compared to the one on the Z10. The battery is also a bit higher on the Z3 as compared to the Z10.
So if you are already using a BlackBerry Z10, upgrading to the Z3 would not make a difference. However, if you are looking for a business smartphone and if your business has implementations of the BlackBerry in the background, then opting for the BlackBerry Z3 seems like a better choice. Finally, the choice is left to the user to choose from. A smaller comfortable-to-use phone compared to a larger 5-incher smartphone, a better camera, LTE and RAM on the older model compared to the better chipset and battery on the Z3.
The final price and launch date of the BlackBerry Z3 is yet to be official, and the price-dropping Z10 is already making heads turn. We are also yet to confirm if BlackBerry is launching the exact same handset in India or if they are making any changes to the final handset for the Indian market.
If we were to assume it is the same version and specifications as that of the Indonesian part. We would definitely recommend the BlackBerry Z3 for now since it features a newer generation chipset, and you can be assured that the next version of BBOS will definitely be supported. The BlackBerry Z10 might possibly lose out on software support sooner.
