BlackBerry begins work on a five-inch touchscreen phone

Speculation has been mounting since two weeks ago when images of the device surfaced online and now a leaked video and presentation slide, believed to show the phone’s full specifications, add weight to these rumours.The YouTube video has since been removed but screengrabs taken by Crackberry – the BlackBerry fan forum – suggest that the […]

Speculation has been mounting since two weeks ago when images of the device surfaced online and now a leaked video and presentation slide, believed to show the phone’s full specifications, add weight to these rumours.
The YouTube video has since been removed but screengrabs taken by Crackberry – the BlackBerry fan forum – suggest that the A10 will have a 5-inch touchscreen, an 8MP camera, a dual-core processor with a quad-core GPU and will run the next version of the BlackBerry operating system, BB 10.2.
If the rumours and leaked specifications are true, the A10 will directly compete with Samsung’s 5-inch Galaxy S4 handset.
The presentation slide showing the A10’s specifications appeared on the Crackberry forum at the weekend.
It appears to come directly from BlackBerry because it has BlackBerry branding in the top left-hand corner as well as a ‘BlackBerry confidential – shared under NDA’.
BlackBerry told MailOnline it did not comment on rumours.
The full list of specifications show that the A10 is expected to have a dual-core 1.7Ghz Qualcommon processor with a quad-core CPU.
It is also shown as potentially having 2GB RAM.
This quad-core would make the device faster at playing games, for example, and could improve the phone’s battery life, which is listed as a 2800 mAh.
If this battery specification is accurate, it would make the A10 more powerful than the current batteries in the Samsung and Apple flagship models.
It will have a 5-inch OLED screen with a 1280×270 resolution and a pixel density of 295 PPI.
Although this is the same size as Samsung’s Galaxy S4 screen, the Korean handset has a higher resolution – 1080×1920 pixels – and a higher PPI at 441.
These elements make the screen images sharper and clearer.
The A10 is shown as being 9.4mm thick, which is much thicker than Samsung’s 7.9mm handset and Apple’s 7.6mm iPhone 5.
Elsewhere on the slide, the A10 is shown as having an 8MP rear-facing camera and a 2.5MP on the front of the device.
It is rumoured to launch with 16GB of internal storage, micro USB and HDMI and NFC built-in.
BlackBerry launched its BB 10 operating system with its Z10 and Q10 handsets last year and it is said to be working on the next version, BB 10.2.
It is likely that the A10 will launch either around the same time, or be the first handset to launch with the updated system.
The video, leaked earlier this week on YouTube, was posted by accessory maker Vivix.
In the video an unknown person gives a brief look at what’s rumoured to be the A10 ‘Aristo’ and is shown apparently showing off a first version of the handset.
The video has since been removed.
The BlackBerry A10 would be larger and more powerful than the Apple iPhone 5’s 4-inch screen.
However, Apple is rumoured to be working on a follow-up handset, dubbed the iPhone 5S, due to be released in September.