RIM has announced today that it will be holding a launch event for BlackBerry 10 on January 30, 2013. This will take place simultaneously at multiple locations around the world, and will include the unveiling of its first two BlackBerry 10 smartphones, along with details of their availability. Those devices, as has been previously reported, will include one touchscreen handset and one with a hardware keyboard.
We recently got a chance to test out BB10 in its latest iteration in Toronto ahead of the TechCrunch meetups, and it’s definitely looking like a mobile OS that’s nearing final release candidate status. With this announcement, we don’t know exactly when it’s coming, however. Previous reports suggest it might be until March before we actually see devices hit store shelves, but we’ll know more as of January 30.
Lately, RIM has been showing off BlackBerry 10 at a number of venues around the world, including its own developer conferences, press events, third-party conferences and more. The company has also been pretty transparent about other steps in the process towards bringing BB10 to market, including when it announced that devices based on the OS were undergoing lab testing with 50 carriers. The company also recently announced that its latest OS has achieved FIPS 140-2 certification ahead of deployment, making devices using it the first from BlackBerry that will be able to be deployed in government agencies without post-launch testing.
Even with a firm date set on an official platform launch, the timeline of release is all-important here. RIM has been criticized in the past for showing and promising too much early, only to encounter delays bringing things to market later on. At this point, we’re very familiar with what BB10 offers in terms of software; all eyes will be on release date and pricing of the two launch devices come the end of January.