Touchscreen BlackBerry 9720 Launched in India at Rs. 15,990

In a bid to conquer the smartphone market in India, Canadian handset-maker BlackBerry announced the launch of its new social BlackBerry 9720 smartphone in India, priced at Rs 15,990. The new handset, which will be available from the weekend, builds on the success of the BlackBerry 7 OS, BlackBerry India
product management head Advait Vaidya said. "We have a huge Qwerty-installed base and people want handsets across price points. This new device gives them better OS (than existing models like Curve) at affordable prices," he further said.

From being amongst the top three smartphone players in India some time ago, BlackBerry's market share has now tanked even below that of the Apple, a later entrant, and the smaller Indian companies which sell cheap Chinese-made handsets.In terms of revenue too, BlackBerry, which was among the top three, has slipped to seventh spot in the country, as per CyberMedia Research. Where Android OS has been declared the best platform available in the smartphone market, the operating system developed by BlackBerry is also not lesser than any top quality platform. The area where the company needs to work upon and improve is to make the interface more interactive, convenient, easy-to-use along with adding more new and technically updated and advanced apps and games to its App Store.
The device runs on BlackBerry 7.1 OS, which features an updated interface that lets you swipe to unlock the phone or access the camera from the lock screen, as well as additional enhancements. Available in a variety of vibrant colors, the new smartphone comes packed with all of your favorite social apps.

Blackberry's forthcoming touch-and-type model is likely to sport following features :

• New operating system BlackBerry 7.1 OS
• Qwerty keyboard
• 2.8-inch touchscreen and track-pad for navigation
• 5 megapixel camera
• FM radio and new feature BBM Voice, which lets users chat over Wi-Fi for free
• 512 MB RAM internal memory and microSD slot (expandable upto 32 GB)
• Features like Geo-tagging, image stabilization
• Available in 5 colours- Black, White, Purple, Blue, Pure Pink
• 1450 mAh battery and talk-time upto 7 hours

To allure more customers, the latest version of BBM that holds BBM Channels will soon be available for BlackBerry 9720, which can be downloaded from BlackBerry World Storefront. Another smart feature that beautifies the handset is the BlackBerry Balance Technology that according to the needs of the company and BYOD customer, can very well separate the personal content from the official one, thus keeping a balance between the two. At the launch event, the Managing Director of BlackBerry India, Sunil Lalvani, said, “The new BlackBerry 9720 smartphone builds on the incredible success of the BlackBerry 7 OS. This new smartphone provides an ideal choice for urban youth and customers who are looking to upgrade from a feature phone or existing BlackBerry Curve smartphone to an affordable, easy-to-use smartphone with rich messaging and social networking connectivity.”
The coming time will decide whether company will able to sustain the cut-throat competition from likes of Sony, HTC, Micromax, Samsung smartphones which have better features than newly launched BlackBerry smartphone.
Earlier this year, BlackBerry had launched its BB10 operating system and unveiled two devices - BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q5.