There’s nothing like a bit of notice, as RIM sets BlackBerry 10 launch event for January 30, 2013

Research in Motion has announced it will officially reveal its BlackBerry 10 phones and their release date at an event to be held on January 30, 2013. The news comes soon after the OS was sent for testing with carriers around the world, showing the new software is edging closer to going on sale.

Research in Motion has announced it will reveal BlackBerry 10 and its accompanying handsets at an event to be held on January 30, 2013. There’s nothing like a bit of notice, and the early announcement has absolutely nothing to do with reminding us that BlackBerry 10 and RIM still exist.

The press release, issued 80 days before the event it announces, says the BlackBerry 10 launch event will “happen simultaneously in multiple countries around the world,” and that it will be the “official launch” of the new platform. This means we’ll be treated to the unveiling of two phones and be provided with the final release dates too.

We’re expecting the phones to be the L Series and the N Series handsets already seen in several leaks; the former of which has a big touchscreen, while the latter sticks with the traditional QWERTY keyboard, but matches it up with a touchscreen to keep it up to date.

RIM has long maintained that BlackBerry 10 will go on sale during the first quarter of 2013, so somewhere between January and March. Now, with the launch event coming right at the end of January, this narrows that date by a full month, making the predictions of a March release look more likely.

It could however, pull an Apple and have the phones ready for pre-order just a week or so after the event, with general release coming soon afterwards. The last we heard about BlackBerry 10, it had been sent to more than 50 carriers worldwide for testing, a process said to take between six and 20 weeks. The worst case scenario put the release date in mid-March 2013.

While skepticism concerning BlackBerry 10 is rife, several important advancements have been made recently, including allowing developers to start submitting applications, and the OS being approved for use with government agencies.

To keep the momentum going, we now have the date for the official launch event too, even if it is next year.