BlackBerry’s newest smartphone is finally coming to the United States.
According to a press release from wireless carrier AT&T, the BlackBerry Z10 will be available to consumers in its store on March 22. Pre-orders for the Z10 will start tomorrow, Tuesday March 12. The BlackBerry Z10 will be available for $199 with a two-year contract.
The timing of the release aligns with what the company said during the BlackBerry 10 launch event at the end of January. The first wave of BlackBerry Z10 first hit consumers in the United Kingdom, Canada and United Arab Emirates the week after BlackBerry announced the devices. BlackBerry said that U.S. consumers would see the BlackBerry Z10 “in March.”
It is nice to see BlackBerry (the company formerly known as Research In Motion) actually hold to its promises these days. The BlackBerry 10 devices were already pushed back from the company’s original launch dates three times in 2012 before settling on Jan. 30, 2013. Due to complicated review processes that the U.S. carriers impose on new smartphones (which complicates coordinating a single release date on multiple carriers), the U.S. was not part of the first wave of countries to get the Z10. But, BlackBerry said March and it has actually lived up to its word. At least on AT&T.
The Z10 will also be available to U.S. consumers on T-Mobile and Verizon. T-Mobile is expected to ship devices starting this week while Verizon has not verified when it will begin selling the smartphone. Sprint is not expected to carry the device.
AT&T said that it will also be serving the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10 to its enterprise and government clients.
