Heins: BlackBerry Q10 is being tested by 40 carriers in 20 countries

During BlackBerry's conference call on Thursday, following the release of its quarterly earnings report, CEO Thorsten Heins brought up the progress of the QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry Q10 handset. According to the executive, the model is being tested by 40 carriers in 20 countries. While there is some controversy over how well the BlackBerry Z10 is selling, some analysts believe that there is plenty of pent-up demand for the Q10 and that this is the phone that BlackBerry should have released first.

The QWERTY equipped BlackBerry Q10

For many, the BlackBerry name brings to mind devices with outstanding QWERTY keyboards like the BlackBerry Bold 9000 and the more recent BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930. Since the company is known for its physical keyboard, many were surprised with the decision made by the Waterloo firm to launch its all-touch model first. In addition, CEO Heins has said in the past that the Z10 was more difficult to develop and that he wanted to get that out of the way first. In addition, the executive said that he wanted to compete in the BYOD market right away and felt that the BlackBerry Z10 would be a better choice to compete with the iOS and Android models being brought to work by employees.

Besides the physical QWERTY, the BlackBerry Q10 carries a square 720 x 720 3.1 inch Super AMOLED display. The combination of the physical QWERTY and a touchscreen works well on the Canadian manufacturer's previous flagship model, the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 and we wouldn't be surprised to see the real demand for BlackBerry 10 kick in with the launch of this model, which is still some weeks away.