AT&T will get its crack at a BlackBerry 10 smartphone starting March 22, when the carrier will start selling the touchscreen Z10 online and in stores.
Customers can pick up the long-awaited phone for $199.99 on a two-year contract. Pre-sale orders get underway March 12, and early-bird orders can be made through AT&T's website.
The device, announced in January, is the flagship device for BlackBerry's new operating system, BB10. It features a 4.2-inch, 1280 x 768 display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8MP camera and is capable of recording 1080p video.
While it comes with 16GB of internal storage, the Z10 is expandable to 32GB with microSD.
Phone home
The Z10 will be the first BlackBerry smartphone to jump on AT&T's 4G LTE network, the carrier said in a press release.
The U.K., Canada, and a handful of other regions have seen the Z10 on sale for several weeks already, yet it's hard to ascertain just how well (or how poorly) the phone has performed as BlackBerry continues to stay quiet on exact sales figures.
There's a lot to like about the device, but when up against a field stacked with home run hitters like the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3, the Z10 might flounder in the crowded U.S. market.
Verizon and T-Mobile both plan to carry the phone, though neither committed to an exact release date. With AT&T's announcement, however, we expect both to pipe up soon.
