Minutes after BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins introduced the two new BlackBerry smartphones, U.S. carriers began releasing statements to officially back the new devices.
Verizon was the first to announce it would sell the touchscreen BlackBerry Z10 and Q10with QWERTY keyboard, going so far as to attach a price -- $199 on contract. Big Red also said it would exclusively sell the Z10 in white in addition to its all-black color.
AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile also came forward today, with Sprint committing to a 4G LTE BlackBerry Q10, and AT&T backing both. T-Mobile said in a statement that it will sell the touchscreen Z10.
Conspicuously absent are the phones' release dates. Prior to the launch, a BlackBerry representative told CNET to expect the Z10 to arrive in March, and Heins himself pitched an April time frame for the keyboard-bearing Q10.
In addition to launching an overhauled BlackBerry 10 operating system, CEO Heins put the old company name, RIM, to bed, declaring the from now on, BlackBerry the device and BlackBerry the company would be one and the same.
