BlackBerry may have made several changes recently, including changing its name from Research In Motion BlackBerry earlier this year, but don"t expect the smartphone developer to join other companies in the industry by selling an ultra-cheap version of its BlackBerry devices.
During a news conference this week in BlackBerry’s hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, Bloomberg reports that BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins stated that while BlackBerry does have plans to release cheaper BlackBerry 10 phones for countries such as India, he added, "You will not see us getting into the 50-, 60-buck phone segment. This is not BlackBerry."
The idea of selling very cheap smartphones is one that has been successful for Nokia with its Asha lineup. In February, Samsung announced a new family of cheap smartphones under the REX label but so far there"s no word on a specific price point or launch date. Chinese-based ZTE and Huawei also sell these kinds of phones in Asia.
Heins, however, seems to not want to compromise on the kinds of hardware and features that will be using the new BlackBerry 10 OS. He stated, "You will see new products being launched this year based on BlackBerry 10, all fully LTE-capable, the whole 10 yards, that are more geared towards those price bands where people need to be."
Source: Bloomberg | Image via BlackBerry