Black berry wants to impress loyal customers.Well its evident in a world where touch screen smart phones rule and having a qwerty keypad smart phone makes you look either old fashioned or kinda boring and aged.The company whose market share price were constant at a flat line of 1% has announced and launched the classic smart phone as its tagged in most parts and countries.Obviously Black berry fans in Kenya might have to wait just a little while longer before the Smart phone hits Kenyan stores,its retail price seemingly looking a bit high for most already in market,and with similar or better specs.
With the Classic, BlackBerry is courting its core customer, the business user. The physical keyboard is something traditional BlackBerry users prefer because they find it easier than touch screens to type with. The company is also emphasizing battery life and security.
“A lot of people say the Classic is aiming for loyal customers. And that is true,” CEO John Chen said at the gadget’s launch event, tellingly held in New York City’s Financial District. But he also invited people who haven’t used a BlackBerry “especially people who are young,” to try the BlackBerry Classic.
Pioneered in 1999 with the launch of the RIM 950, BlackBerry changed the culture by allowing on-the-go business people to access email wireless. Then came a new generation of competing smartphones, and suddenly the BlackBerry looked ancient. Apple showed that phones can handle much more than email and phone calls. Blackberry was late in overhauling its operating system to compete.
Check out the Specs Review and Price of the Black berry classic Smart phone:
Spec-wise, the Classic sports a 1.5 GHz Qual comm Snapdragon Processor, a 3.5-inch touchscreen display, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, 2MP front- and 8MP rear-facing camera, as well as Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. As for the price, the smartphone is available for $449, unlocked, in the US.
The launch comes at a time when BlackBerry is trying hard to reinvent itself to align with the current smartphone market. Back in September, the company launched the Passport, a smartphone with a square-shaped screen.
And on the hardware side, BlackBerry partnered with Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles products in vast factories in China. Foxconn, known for its manufacturing contract work on Apple’s iPhones and iPads, jointly designs and manufactures most BlackBerry devices and manages inventory of the devices in an agreement that offloads much of BlackBerry’s manufacturing costs. Foxconn is making the Classic for BlackBerry.
Chen, who took over as chief executive 13 months ago, has set a goal of selling 10 million phones a year. In comparison, Apple sold 39.3 million iPhones over three months in the third quarter
