All about the BlackBerry Q5, the lower-cost BB10 device

Research In Motion (RIM) has unveiled BlackBerry Q5, its lower-cost device running on the BlackBerry 10 operating system, aimed at consumers in emerging markets.

This is the company's third smartphone to run on the new OS, after the all-touch BlackBerry Z10 and the QWERTY keypad-based Q10.

While announcing the phone on the first day of RIM's annual three-day conference, CEO Thorsten Heins said the "slim, sleek" device will be available in red, black, white and pink colours.

Heins, who became RIM's CEO in January 2012, said the company has made a lot of progress in a short period of time.

He restated BlackBerry's committed to "mobile first" and took a subtle jab at industry predictions that he might not make it to this year's conference as CEO because of the competitive mobile landscape.

"I'm happy to say they were wrong," Heins said. "We are not only still here. We are firing on all cylinders as a company."

The BlackBerry Q5 will be available in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia (including the Asia Pacific region), and Latin America beginning July. It isn't expected to be released in North America for now.

The company did not disclose prices for the device.

Some of the features of the BlackBerry Q5 are -

>> 2GB of RAM
>> 8GB flash memory
>> 2 megapixel front-facing cameras, 5 megapixels rear-facing camera
>> 3.1-inch LCD display
>> Physical QWERTY keyboard