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Almost forgotten smartphone brand BlackBerry is having another crack at taking on Apple and Samsung with a new 5″ touchscreen smartphone that comes with a “monster” battery.
In Australia Blackberry has lost more than
10% market share as Samsung and Apple strip market share away from the once
much loved brand.
Things are so bad for the Canadian Company that they are preparing for deep staff cuts-up to 40% of its employees-by the end of the year according to the Wall Street Journal.
The layoffs will cut across all departments and occur in waves, likely affecting several thousand workers, the people said. BlackBerry had 12,700 employees as of March, the last time it disclosed a total number.
The WSJ said that the scale of the planned layoffs paints a stark picture of just how far the Canadian has fallen. Two years ago, BlackBerry had more than 17,000 employees and 14% of the U.S. smartphone market, according to IDC. Now, it has less than 3% of the U.S. market.
The new BlackBerry Z30 which is set to be
launched in Australia shortly comes with a 5-inch screen and the largest
battery ever to be built into a BlackBerry handset, the Canadian Company claims
that the battery will last 25 hours.
The device has a Super AMOLED Display and
is powered by a 1.7 GHz quad core processor.
The Z30 also has Priority Hub built in,
which works in a similar way to the notification centres of Android and iOS.
New
antenna technology has also been added, designed to boost signal in areas where
reception is low the Z30 can tune reception in low-signal areas to make sure
the user gets the fastest speeds possible.
BlackBerry also claims that the new
technology means fewer dropped calls.
With the majority of rivals releasing full-touchscreen
devices, BlackBerry has had to take a further step away from its trademark
physical QWERTY design seen on previous models.
The Z30 is the second full touchscreen
device to be sold by BlackBerry.
In Australia, Android has 56.4 per cent of
the market share.
This is ahead of iOS with 34.2 per cent.
Windows Phone makes up 5.2 per cent of
smartphone OS sales
BlackBerry now accounts for less than 3 per
cent, down from 11 per cent last year.
The new Blackberry hub application is said
to be able to find and filter messages from a person’s favourite contacts by
‘learning what conversations and what people are important’.
In theory, the more a phone is used, the
better the hub becomes at knowing which messages should be flagged and which
can wait.
This includes post and messages across
social networks.
Carlo Chiarello, for BlackBerry, said: ‘The
new BlackBerry Z30 smartphone builds on the solid foundation and engaging user
experience of the BlackBerry 10 platform with features like the powerful
BlackBerry Hub, its exceptional touchscreen keyboard and industry leading
browser.
‘The smartphone rounds out the BlackBerry
10 portfolio and is designed for people looking for a smartphone that excels at
communications, messaging and productivity.
‘Having apps like the full Documents To Go
suite that comes pre-installed, together with its 5″ touch display, the
BlackBerry Z30 smartphone gives you a best in class productivity experience on
the go.’
