BlackBerry Z10 price dropped to Rs 53,000

BlackBerry Z10, the newest kid on the block has been gathering its fair share of attention from enthusiasts in India, despite the fact that the handset has...

Anuradha Shetty|Feb 12, 2013, 14:14:47 IST

BlackBerry Z10, the newest kid on the block has been gathering its fair share of attention from enthusiasts in India, despite the fact that the handset has not been launched officially here yet.

The Z10 is available in the grey market here and the latest coming from them is that the prices have dropped to Rs 53,000. Of what we've gathered after speaking with some of the store owners there, the prices will continue to drop day by day. At 53,000, the price of the BlackBerry Z10 has dropped considerably, since it first became available.

Only a few days ago, we learnt from our sources that the Z10 was available in the grey market with a rather stratospheric price tag. We spoke with three grey market retailers and at least two of them confirmed selling units of the Z10. They informed us that they will each cost Rs 80,000, excluding bill and warranty. In fact, the prices only increased since the handset first became available. A day prior, retailers claimed to have sold phones for Rs 75,000.

Prices expected to drop day by day

The BlackBerry Z10 was announced on January 30 at an event in New York. It is the first handset by the company to run the BlackBerry 10 OS.

Here is a quick look at some of the highlights of the Z10:

4.2-inch screen with a resolution of 1280 x 768
LTE, 3G, EDGE, Wi-Fi, NFC
GPS with A-GPS support
Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP
8-megapixel AF camera with 1080p recording; 2-megapixel front facing camera with 720p recording
16GB internal memory, expandable up to 64GB via microSD
MicroHDMI for AV out

The phone is powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4470 processor and comes with 2GB of RAM. The BlackBerry Z10 will be kept powered on by an 1,800mAh battery.

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Of course, these prices are in line with prices of other highly-anticipated handsets that haven’t been released in India. The Nexus 4, which was launched last year internationally, has yet to be seen on Indian shores. On eBay.in, the handset is available from Rs 32,000 onwards for the 8GB model and the price goes all the way up to Rs 49,000 for the 16GB version. Considering the Nexus 4’s original price ($299 and $349), this is a more than twice the price.

Even when the iPhone 5 hadn’t officially entered India, its price was a mind-boggling Rs 1 lakh for the 64GB model, while the 16GB sold for 76,000 and the 32GB version for Rs 85,000. This was during the peak popularity of the device. Based on these numbers and depending on supply, the Z10 might see a further jump in price before coming down again closer to the official launch of the device. When official, the device could still end up with an expensive price tag. It is expected to retail close to Rs 45,000.

Keep up with all the latest BlackBerry 10 news in our BB 10 section.