According to a source close to N4BB, BlackBerry will certify and release to carriers a version of BlackBerry 10.3.1 beginning February 19th.
While this doesn’t mean the carriers will begin rollouts on the same day — some network providers engage in more thorough and time-consuming QA testing than others — it points to a February release date for those who bought unlocked versions of BlackBerry 10 devices. According to N4BB, the update was scheduled for earlier in February but BlackBerry had to retract it due to the presence of a critical bug.
BlackBerry’s CEO, John Chen, said during the Classic launch in December that version 10.3.1 would be coming to all current BlackBerry 10 devices, including the Z10, Q10, Q5, Z30, and Passport, sometime in February. It’s unclear whether all the devices will receive the same feature upgrades, but there isn’t much variance in the hardware between them so it should just be a case of optimizing the new features for various screen sizes and resolutions.
Luckily for us, Canadian carriers are usually the first to roll out BlackBerry upgrades due to the close relationship they have with the company and a well-worn set of QA procedures dating back to the early 2000’s. Customers that bought unbranded BB10 devices directly from ShopBlackBerry or Amazon will likely be the first to receive the update, too.
We’ll likely know more in the coming days, so hold tight. For an overview of the 10.3.1 update, read our BlackBerry Classic review.
[source]N4BB[/source]
