Gadget of the Week: BlackBerry Q10

It's the first BlackBerry 10 device with a physical keyboard, and for that reason alone it's one of the most significant phone releases of the year in South Africa.

Despite a high price likely to limit sales - purchase price is R8000 and up - the Q10 will resonate with die-hard  BlackBerry Bold users who don't want to give up on their keyboards.

At 139g, it's almost the same weight and with a similar design as its predecssor, yet is startlingly different, with a 720×720 Super AMOLED 3.1" touch screen (the 9900 was 2.8"). A 1.5GHz processor makes it quick and responsive, and an 8MP rear camera and 2MP front puts it on a par with most other leading smartphones.

It ships standard with LTE, and not just for show: with a good connection, downloads are blazingly fast.

That said, it's a battery hog, so keep the optional charger with spare battery handy.

Some may struggle with the absence of the familiar Blackberry function/home button, but bigger keys make it the best typing experience yet on a phone.

It won't come with the unlimited Blackberry Internet Service (BIS), but then its customers wont struggle to afford a date bundle.

BIS aside, when a Curve equivalent of the Q10 - in terms of low-end pricing - is released later this year, we will for the first time see just how strong BlackBerry remains in this market.