After tasting success with Z10, BlackBerry slashes price of Z30 as well, now available for Rs 34,990

Struggling Canadian handset manufacturer BlackBerry (previously Research in Motion or RIM) has slashed the price of Z30, the successor to its flagship Z10 in the Indian market. The smartphone, which was launched in Oct 2013 for Rs 39,990, is now retailing at Rs 34,990- a 12.5 per cent decrease in the price.

Here is a quick look at the specifications of the device.

It comes with a 5 inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display (720×1280 pixel resolution), and runs on the latest BlackBerry 10 OS version 10.2 out of the box. It is powered by a 1.7 GHz processor with quad core graphics and has 2GB of RAM. The internal memory of the device is 16GB, which can be further expanded an additional 64GB with a microSD card.

The Z30 sports an 8 megapixel auto focus camera that can record full high definition videos (1080p) at 30 frames per second and a 2 MP front facing camera that can also record high definition videos (720p) at 30 fps. It will also come with Time Shift mode, which captures milliseconds before and after you click the photograph – so that you can scroll back on the 'dial' to open your friend's eyes (assuming they were closed when the picture was taken) and then go forward to catch another friend smiling (if he/she was not at the time of the click), before combining them all to create the perfect picture.

On the connectivity front, the device has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, 3G and 4G, and comes with a microSD card slot and a microUSB port. The dimensions of the device are 140.7mm x 72mm x 9.4mm and its weight is 170 gm. It has Near Field Communication (NFC), A-GPS, and a 2,880 mAh battery that the company claims will provide up to 25 hours of mixed use.

In comparison, Z10 sports a 4.2 inch capacitive touchscreen display (768×1280 pixels resolution) with 355 ppi (pixels per inch) pixel density, is powered by a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and has 16 GB that can be expanded up to 32 GB with a microSD card. Similar to the Z10, the Z30's touchscreen keyboard will learn your writing style and suggest words to help you type faster, more accurately and with the least effort. And if you tend to mistype certain letters regularly, the keyboard will remember and adjust accordingly to make sure you hit the right key.

The Z10 affect

Late last month, BlackBerry had slashed the price of its flagship Z10 device in India for the second time. The smartphone- which was launched in Feb last year for a hefty price tag of Rs 43,490- had received its first price cut within a few months of its launch. However, this time around, BlackBerry decreased the price to Rs 17,990, which was almost 60 per cent lower than its original price.

At the time, we had asked the question whether the price cut would be enough to arouse consumer interest in the faltering device? The answer came in the form of the sales of the device rising so much that it went out of stock across the country.

"The fantastic consumer response to BlackBerry's 10 year anniversary special promotion led to a sellout of BlackBerry Z10 stocks within a week. BlackBerry Z10 has now been restocked across BlackBerry's retail network across the country and on Flipkart.com, starting March 26, 2014," said Sameer Bhatia, director, distribution, BlackBerry India.

However, we don't expect the company to repeat Z10's success with Z30, since the price difference between the original and the current MRP of the device is not that great. The company had also unveiled two new smartphones at the mobile world congress (MWC) 2014, christened BlackBerry Q20 and Z3. Both the devices run on the latest version of the BlackBerry 10 operating system, and while one of them (Z3) comes with a touchscreen display, the other one (Q20) offers a full classic QWERTY experience that the company was famous for at a time in the past.