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BlackBerry Q10 goes on sale in the UK - but Qwerty handset remains elusive

The BlackBerry Q10 is now available to buy in the UK, but only from one retailer. However, it will be offered more widely, but the networks aren't saying when.
Written by Ben Woods, Contributor

The Qwerty and touchscreen BlackBerry Q10 is now available to buy in UK but is currently only being offered in one shop.

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Image: BlackBerry

While Selfridges in London is the only store to be stocking the device already — it has an exclusive until the 28 April — the UK's major mobile operators and retailers such as Phones4U will also be offering the device at a later date.

The high-end department store is currently the only stockist of the high-end Q10 — priced at £579.99 SIM-free — but O2, Three, Orange, T-Mobile and EE customers will also be able to get their hands on the device in the coming weeks, each of the networks confirmed to ZDNet.

While O2, Orange, T-Mobile and EE couldn't say exactly when the device would be available on their networks, Vodafone has opened up its pre-order process for the device. It's currently pegging the earliest possible delivery date for the Q10 as 30 April. Similarly, while O2's spokesman couldn't confirm the release date of the device at the time of publication, the network's 'coming soon' page lists the Q10 release date as 29 April.

Vodafone is the only standalone network to have its pre-order page live at the time of writing and is offering the device on two-year contracts of £33 per month or more with an upfront cost for the handset of £129. On a monthly tariff of £37, there's no additional cost for the handset, and the data allowance is upped from 500MB to 1GB.

Three is the only network that said it could not confirm whether it would be stocking the Q10.

Phones4U and Carphone Warehouse also have the device for pre-order on a range of networks and price plans. Both the retailers are offering incentives for customers that pre-order the device. In the case of Phones4U, the first 300 customers to pre-order will also receive a free BlackBerry PlayBook, while Carphone Warehouse pre-order customers will receive a free mini Bluetooth speaker.

The Phones4U pre-order page is currently listing delivery times as in the next four to five weeks.

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