BlackBerry Q5 launched in India for Rs 24,990

BlackBerry has officially launched its third BlackBerry 10 smartphone, the Q5, in India for Rs 24,990. It will be available in authorised stores from July 20. The Q5 will be the second-tier device to the high-end BlackBerry Q10, which is already available in the market for Rs 44,900. Here’s a quick hands-on with the BlackBerry Q5:

The Q5 should be more appealing to buyers thanks to it lower price, but it also doesn’t skim on many features. The BlackBerry Q5 (see hands-on) has a 3.1-inch LCD display, the same size as the display on the Q10; it also has the same 720 x 720 resolution. The Q5, though, has an IPS LCD display, unlike the Q10’s Super AMOLED display.

The BlackBerry Q5 seems to have decent hardware

Performance on the device should be smooth considering BlackBerry has had plenty of time to optimise it. But the dual-core Snapdragon chipset should will provide enough oomph to overcome stutters. The Q5 has 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory along with a microSD card slot. The camera is one area where the Q5 seems lacking. A 5 megapixel shooter sits on the back along with a single LED flash. The front-facing camera is a 2 megapixel affair with 720p video recording. The primary camera can shoot 1080p video.

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Of course, this being a QWERTY smartphone, it comes with BlackBerry’s famously-good typing experience. The keys in this instance are laid out in island-style like on newer notebooks. The Q10, if you will recall, had a more traditional keyboard design.

We’ll be bringing you more coverage of the Q5 through the day, so stay tuned.