Like with the Z10, BlackBerry will offer four SKUs of the Q10, three with LTE (two with HSPA+ and one with CDMA) plus a fourth, non-LTE HSPA+ model. The AT&T version we tested offered quad-band LTE at 2, 4, 5, 17 (700 / 850 / 1700 / 1900) plus penta-band HSPA+ I, II, IV, V, VI (800 / 850 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100) and quad-band EDGE. A second LTE model adds in Verizon-friendly CDMA, with LTE band 13 (700), dual-band CDMA (800 / 1900), dual-band HSPA+ I, VIII (900 / 2100) and quad-band EDGE. The third LTE model offers quad-band LTE at 3, 7, 8, 20 (800 / 900 / 1800 / 2600), quad-band HSPA+ at I, V, VI, VIII (800 / 850 / 900 / 2100) and quad-band EDGE. Finally, there's the penta-band HSPA+ model at I, II, V, VI, VIII (800 / 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100) with quad-band EDGE. All offer 802.11a/b/g/n connectivity and Bluetooth 4.0. Those who like to move it, move it will find an accelerometer, gyro, magnetometer and GPS.

Now, while you can draw your conclusions about what carriers the phone will be arriving on, unfortunately we don't have any confirmations as we write this review. We also don't have a formal release date, but BlackBerry promises it'll be in American stores by the end of May. Canadian readers, meanwhile, can get theirs on May 1st, while European readers should have it before the end of the month.

Powering the device is the same 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8960 dual-core CPU with 2GB of RAM. The phone also offers 16GB of internal storage, with microSD expansion on tap. Call quality was on-par with the Z10, so about average, but again we're happy to report the built-in speaker on the phone seems to have more oomph than the one on the Z10.

Keyboard

While the display is certainly worth talking about (and we shall, in just a moment), given the internal similarities with the Z10, the highlight of the Q10 is surely its keyboard. Thankfully, it's a very good one -- but we're not entirely sure we'd call it better than that on the Bold 9900. The biggest distinguishing feature is the keyboard layout, which does away with the ergonomic, curved shape in favor of straight rows. While this does mean you may need to move your wrists closer together to achieve proper thumb alignment with the keys, you're not likely to notice much of a difference.

Otherwise, the layout is almost exactly the same, with the only slight difference being the addition of an alternate function on the 0 key: a little microphone. It's with this that you trigger BlackBerry 10's Voice Control feature, though in general we'd much rather just type. And, thankfully, you can. You can just start typing from the phone's home screen to search for apps or contacts. You can also enter in commands, like "email" to start an email or "bbm" to send a message. This is a very handy extension to the OS that can certainly speed up simple tasks.

Overall key shape is the same as on the earlier Bold, with that same gentle arc of the keys curving to meet your thumbs. It is, then, very nearly the same as you've experienced on earlier BlackBerries, and that is, of course, a very good thing. That said, we couldn't help but wonder how this device compares to typing on the new, predictive keyboard on the Z10. So, we compared them.

The move to physical keys defeats some of the most compelling aspects of BlackBerry 10's predictive virtual keyboard, namely the ability to flick upward on individual letters to auto-complete words and the ability to swipe from right to left to delete a whole word. There is a predictive mode you can enable on the Q10, which simply places a row of suggestions along the bottom of the display as you type. We found reaching up to it and then back to the keyboard a bit clumsy and, indeed, it's disabled by default.

In nearly every situation, we were quicker entering text on the virtual keys of the Z10 than the physical ones of the Q10.

Even though the predictive modes on both the Q10 and the Z10 quickly figured out our primary testing phrase ("the quick brown fox...") we were still slightly faster on the Z10. In fact, in nearly every situation we tried, we were quicker entering text on the virtual keys of the Z10 than the physical ones of the Q10. The exception? Email addresses and passwords. Getting to special characters is far less cumbersome when they're all right there on the keys.

Display

It isn't too often you see a square display on a smartphone these days, but then again portrait-QWERTY devices are hardly a dime a dozen either. The panel in the Q10 is a 3.1-inch, 720 x 720 Super AMOLED that, we're happy to report, looks quite good from all angles -- though, it must be said, the color temperature goes from overly warm to cool when you look at it off-angle. Even so, contrast remains quite high. Brightness is also good and the panel is easily visible in direct sunlight.

It's really the size and the shape that are its only detractions. The 3.1-inch display is about 10 percent larger than the 2.8-inch LCD on the Bold 9900, and that we've moved up to 720 x 720 from VGA definitely helps too, but the panel here certainly looks and feels tiny compared to the relatively mammoth displays found on other smartphones. That includes the 4.2-inch, 1,280 x 768 LCD on the Z10, by the way, which feels far better-suited for consuming content, surfing the internet and even cruising through long lists of emails and other social missives.

Of course, that phone doesn't have a keyboard.

Camera

On the Q10, we have the same pair of cameras as we found on the Z10 -- that is, a 2-megapixel shooter in the front and an 8-megapixel unit in the back, paired with an LED flash. Unsurprisingly, then, we found camera performance in the Q10 to be just the same as on the Z. In bright light, photos are passably good, lacking sharpness and having a bit of noise, but color reproduction is solid. Low-light shooting is something we would avoid.