BlackBerry Z10 Limited Edition Red Sent To 12,000 Developers For Free

This week the folks at BlackBerry have sent out a whopping 12,000 BlackBerry Z10 Red edition smartphones to developers across the world. Packages have been sent this with a note thanking these developers for "taking a leap of faith" in working with BlackBerry before and through the release of BlackBerry 10. This device appears to be exactly the same as the standard BlackBerry Z10 (see our full review here) device save the limited-edition red color casing.

The "Limited Edition Process" can still be seen on the official BlackBerry website for developers with a mystery package at the end of a timeline. This set of instructions shows that it was developers working with BlackBerry 10 apps and submitting a qualifying app to the company before January 21st, 2013, that were able to get in on this hot red party. This process was originally shown to have been delivering a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device which was then requested back before the BlackBerry 10 Launch Event.

UPDATE: Developers can still get in on the action as the BlackBerry team has extended the deadline for the Limited Edition Z10 to February 28th – head to that Limited Edition Process link and get your coding fingers out!

Amazingly it appears that a "6-8 week" launch window has been broken to pieces by BlackBerry (still called RIM when this whole process began) as developers have already begun receiving what up until now was still a mystery package. The package was described as simply "The Limited Edition device" and was noted as being "a specially designed fully functional BlackBerry 10 device built to help recognize those developers that helped launch the BlackBerry 10 platform by submitting quality 3rd party applications." Rather simple and entirely enticing.

This is now one of three different editions of the BlackBerry Z10 that will be on the market, the first being a standard black version and the second being a white edition offered only through Verizon (thus far). There will of course also be different editions based on the radios required for each different mobile carrier both here in the United States and abroad – and it's looking like the end of March is going to be the delivery window on the whole – can't wait!

[via BlackBerry]