RIM To Sell BlackBerry 10 Smartphones Beginning In February

RIM will  start selling smartphones based on its new BlackBerry 10 operating system beginning in February, 2013 according to Bloomberg , the month after it officially unveils them January 30 at an event announced yesterday. That’s according to RIM COO Kristian Tear, who followed up with that information after the company announced BB10’s public launch.

“We want to do it as quickly as possible,” Tear told Bloomberg in an interview, saying that the company hopes to get its first BB10 devices out to consumers within 30 days of the official launch party in “multiple continents.” The company had originally not specified a date, saying only that BB10 hardware would arrive in the first quarter of 2013, and a later report suggested that they might actually not make it to market until March, at the very end of that quarter.

RIM will likely provide more detail about when exactly customers can pick up BB10 smartphones at their January event, and for how much. So far, we know handsets are with carriers around the world for testing, and now RIM has confirmed that it’s not looking for a drawn out wait between the official product launch and retail ship dates. Good for them.

If you’re interested in how BB10 performs, we’ve got an extensive hands-on video from a recent build to check out to satisfy your curiosity.