After Indonesia, BlackBerry today unveiled Z3 in India for Rs 15,990. Currently one can pre book it on Flipkart and The Mobile Store and will make way in physical retail stores in second week of July.
The BlackBerry Z3 also marks the beginning of a new relationship between BlackBerry and Foxconn who is manufacturing this device. Here is our first impression about the device.
Specs
BlackBerry Z3 offers a 5-inch display with 960×540 pixel resolution. BlackBerry has powered this large screen with a dual-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 mobile Processor which is paired with 1.5 GB RAM. In terms of hardware specifications, the BlackBerry Z3 kind of replicates what Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 offers but without the HD display.
The Z3 has 8 GB on-board storage and memory card slot to add up to 32 GB micro SD card. At the rear, it has a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and auto focus. This camera can be used to capture decent quality images and also record full HD video. It runs on BlackBerry 10.2.1 operating system.
Other significant features of the Z3 include WiFi support, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, Near Field Communication, FM Radio, GPS with A-GPS support and micro USB 2.0 port along standard audio port. The specifications sheet also mentions a micro HDMI port to connect the phone to a large display.
BlackBerry Z3 will run BlackBerry 10.2.1 OS out of the box and it makes installing the Android apps easily. Clearly, BlackBerry banks on this capability to let the consumers enjoy best of the BlackBerry as well as Android platform.
The BlackBerry Z3 features a 2500 mAh battery and single micro-SIM card slot.
Display
The most visible thing you will notice in the device is huge 5inch display which sports a 540×960 resolution. The display quality was good from all the angles and in and in different lighting conditions (in bright sunlight brightness has to be kept on maximum). Even response to touch was great.
Look and feel
The BlackBerry Z3 sports rounded edges at the corners and is comfortable to hold even with sweaty palms because of a dot textured finish. The back panel looks quite good with prominent speaker grill and a shining BlackBerry logo. Like most of the Android devices in the market BlackBerry has placed the power and volume rocker on the left panel which may be difficult to access if one uses a flip cover along with the device. 
On the right panel one can access SIM card and microSD slot which are covered by a rubberized flap cover.
Typing
While typing of BlackBerry Z3 one can either use English, Hinglish or Hindi keyboard which is a feature of The BlackBerry 10 OS. Also, single speaker that that is present in the device is quite loud and gives a decent output.
Camera
On the camera front, in well-lit condition the camera output was great and in low lighting conditions flash was quite effective in capturing close up shots. We will more information about the camera functionality once we carry out the detailed review of the device.
Performance
While using the BlackBerry Z3 for a brief time I didn’t notice any lag in the device. The usage was quite fluid and response to touch was quite smooth. Stay tuned for a detailed test which we will be publishing few day after doing the thorough review of the device.
Images By Sushil Kumar