Several Canadian retailers and wireless carriers today began taking pre-orders for the BlackBerry Q10 smartphone, which features a physical qwerty keyboard.
However, there was no official word on when the Q10 will ship in Canada or the United States. A BlackBerry spokeswoman said only: "The BlackBerry Q10 will be available in Canada in the coming weeks. Details on availability in other markets will follow soon." Blackberry is based in Waterloo, Ontario.
BlackBerry executives in January said only that the Q10 would ship in the second quarter. Some reports have said shipping would start in April.
The BlackBerry Q10 has a physical keyboard.
The Q10 pre-orders in Canada were announced by retailers Best Buy and FutureShop and wireless carriers Rogers and Telus.
Rogers divulged that it will have both the white and black versions of the Q10, and that it will charge $199.99 for the devices with a three-year contract.
None of the four companies said when the phone will be available.
Some reports have stated that a leaked internal Rogers document shows an April 30 launch date for the Q10.
Sprint, AT&T and Verizon Wireless plan to sell the Q10 in the U.S., but they haven't set firm shipping dates.
BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said the qwerty version of the BlackBerry 10 device is expected to be a hit with traditional BlackBerry users who are familiar with a physical keyboard. The touchscreen Z10 went on sale in March, through carriers AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
