BlackBerry's next flagship phone could be the A10

Just a few months after the launch of the Z10 and the recent unveiling of Q10, BlackBerry seems to be looking to expand its line-up of BlackBerry 10 phones even further. According to CNET, the company will be releasing its next flagship phone—dubbed the BlackBerry A10—during the holidays.

The A10 is set to be a successor to the Z10 and will take over the high-end tier of BlackBerry devices. In turn, the Z10 and Q10 will be moved down to the mid-tier. The Q5 will continue to occupy the lowest tier. BlackBerry boss Thorsten Heins had hinted at the existence of the A10 in an earlier interview with CNET.  "There's one new product I'm excited about, but I can't really share it," Heins told CNET in March.

The Z10 will step down as the A10 becomes the flagship

US carrier Sprint has reportedly made plans to sell the A10 when it is launched in November. The carrier had earlier skipped on the Z10. This might be because Sprint knew what BlackBerry was up to and preferred to wait for the A10 to be launched.

Back in May, BlackBerry had unveiled the low-end Q5. The BlackBerry Q5 features a classic BlackBerry keyboard with discrete keys that has been re-engineered and designed to help you type fast, accurately and with the least amount of effort. Plus with Instant Action shortcuts you can type to perform tasks faster. The BlackBerry Q5 smartphone gives you the best of both worlds - a classic QWERTY keyboard for optimised communications and a 3.1-inch touchscreen for all the rest.

BlackBerry has also announced at the BlackBerry Live event that its operating system – BlackBerry 10 – now has more than 1,20,000 apps. This is quite a figure for such a young operating system. BB10 was launched back in January with great fanfare alongside the BlackBerry flagship device – the Z10.