The white edition of the BlackBerry Q10 has landed in the UK, teaming a physical QWERTY keyboard with the rejuventated smartphone-maker’s user-friendly, altogether more fun BB10 operating system.

Carphone Warehouse is offering the handset free on a range of tariffs starting at £33 per month over 24 months on a choice of Three or Vodafone.

Choose Three and you’ll get unlimited texts, 500 anytime any-network minutes every month and unfettered mobile data use.

Opt for Voda and you’re also looking at unlimited texts, as well as monthly allowances of 600 minutes and 500MB of data.

Both networks' offers include a free Bluetooth speaker, normally priced £79.99.

Fresh from setting a sales record when it landed in Selfridges last month and touted by some as the handset to bring BlackBerry back from the brink, the Q10’s feature set includes a 3.1-inch touchscreen and dual-core 1.5 GHz processor.

Its spec sheet also takes in 16GB on-board memory, 4G LTE support, a redesigned keyboard for faster typing and an all-new version of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) that includes support for video chat.

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So far, BlackBerry has debuted one touchscreen phone and one keyboard phone in its line of devices running BlackBerry 10 software, both high-end smartphones. Now it looks like BlackBerry's plans for the next wave of devices have leaked, and it's aiming a little lower.

Images and specs of the so-called BlackBerry R10 were posted on a Chinese website over the weekend. The images have since been removed, although they were reposted elsewhere. The photos and information point to a low-budget BlackBerry 10 phone with a QWERTY keyboard — essentially a successor to the popular BlackBerry Curve phones that sip both data and battery life.

Like the BlackBerry Q10, the R10's keyboard is straight, although it loses the metallic trim between the rows of keys — likely a budget-saving move. The screen is the same square 3.1-inch, 720 x 720 display, but it's unclear if it's also an AMOLED screen like the Q10's or regular LCD. Read more…

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