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Once a pioneer in the smartphone arena, BlackBerry said last month it was weighing options that could include an outright sale, in the face of lackluster sales of its new devices that run on the BlackBerry 10 operating system.

The long-rumored Z30 device, unveiled at an event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, will be BlackBerry's new top-of-the-line device, taking the crown from the smaller Z10 that was launched early this year.

The new touchscreen device, which boasts a five-inch display and a 1.7 gigahertz processor, will compete against the likes of Apple Inc's Phone 5S and Samsung Electronics Co's Galaxy S4, along with a slew of other devices that are powered by Google Inc's Android platform.

The company faces an uphill battle in generating interest in the new phone, however, given the lack of clarity over its future.

Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um said the success of the Z30 would depend on carrier availability, pricing and the pace of consumer adoption.

"While the Z30 helps to bring the focus back to the fundamental business, we believe investors' attention is focused on a potential take-out," said Um in a note to clients.

While the company has long aspired to make its BlackBerry 10 operating system the No. 3 smartphone platform in the market, the latest industry data indicates that Microsoft Corp's Windows Phone platform is in fact more likely to clinch that spot as its devices continue to gain ground.

Although the new line of BlackBerry devices has been well received by reviewers, analysts say the company lacks the financial heft to vie against industry giants like Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft, which boast massive marketing and research and development budgets.

Some analysts contend that Microsoft's move earlier this month to acquire Nokia's phone business and license its patents for 5.44 billion euros poses another hurdle for BlackBerry, as the software giant is likely to redouble its catch-up efforts in the mobile device business.

But Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry, which is set to report its fiscal second-quarter results next week, appears to be sticking with its product roadmap for now, even as it reviews its alternatives.

The company, which touts the Z30 as its "biggest, fastest and most advanced smartphone" to date, said the device will begin to hit store shelves in the UK and parts of the Middle East as early as next week.

The smartphone will go on sale with select carriers and retailers in other regions over the remainder of the year, said the company, adding specific pricing and availability will be announced by its partners at the time of their respective launches.

Shares of BlackBerry were up 1 percent at $10.66 in morning trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday.

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Control Center
One of the most talked about new changes for iOS 7 is not new at all on Android phones, but I think I speak for most iOS users when I say the Control Center is an extremely welcome addition. It was always a pain to sift through the settings using a number of taps just to access the brightness controls. Same for Wi-fi settings, which -- because of an old router at home -- I ended up having to access frequently. Now, a simple swipe upwards gives me easy access to these settings and more. Oh, and the flashlight button to turn on your flash when it's dark is a great touch.

iTunes Radio
Frankly, when I heard Apple was making a Pandora-like radio option, I wasn't that impressed. I mean, there are a slew of streaming music and audio apps in the app store and many of them are free -- at least the radio features are. But now that I've used the app for a few days, I like it better than most streaming radio apps I've seen.

Not only can you create a stream based on songs or multiple artists, but there are featured streams that are great for music discovery. Also, when I really like a song I'm listening to, I can buy it straight away from iTunes without missing a beat of the song or closing the app.

Camera App
The iOS 7 camera app is not a huge change over what we had in iOS 6, but I really like having the ability to swipe between shot types. The filters are also a nice touch for adding a quick effect, though I wish there were more to choose from. But what I particularly like is the ability to take burst shots. Everyone knows that not all photos come out perfectly, but if you can take several at a time, chances are at least one will be to your liking.

I have an iPhone 5 so the burst shots feature is not as good as it is on the iPhone 5S (10 photos per second, along with slow-mo), but I'm glad there's a slower variation available on the iPhone 5.

Messages time stamps
One thing that had always bugged me about text messages is that you only got a general time frame for when texts were sent. It would only mark the first text in the chain, so you couldn't tell when subsequent texts were sent or received.

I wasn't even aware of the change in iOS 7 until one of my coworkers pointed it out to me: if you swipe to the left in the Messages window you can see a time stamp for each individual text. I'm pretty sure this change will settle a lot of petty arguments between people: "No, look! I replied to your message two minutes later! It's not my fault!" That is a fictitious example that has nothing to do with real life. No, really.

Safari does Twitter
Another new feature isn't getting all the press that things like Control Center and iTunes Radio get, but will be a great addition for Twitter users. Now, when you touch the bookmarks button at the bottom. You can touch the "@" symbol in the top right to get Twitter links. What you get is a list of all the tweets from people you follow who posted links to Twitter. From here, you can just touch each tweet and quickly see the associated post, picture, or video, automatically formatted perfectly for your iPhone.

FaceTime audio
FaceTime got the iOS 7 design treatment along with the rest of the core apps, but it also got one surprisingly cool new feature: FaceTime audio. Now, you can make a call over 4G or Wi-fi without the video component and the sound quality is fantastic.

The only thing I don't like about it is that, while you can switch to video in the middle of an audio call, you can't switch back to audio from a video call. Still, being able to avoid long distance (and international) charges with great sound quality is huge perk.

Airdrop
We all probably remember the Galaxy S4 commercial parody where the two Galaxy owners do the phone bump next to the people in line at the Apple store. The over-the-top Apple fanboys in line say something like "Woah, my iPhone can't do that!"

In iOS 7, not only can you quickly send photos, videos, and contacts using AirDrop, but just about anything from any app that has the share button (with the exception of music). The only problem is that it only works on iPhone 5 or later because of the chip architecture in the iPhone 4S. Still, I think it's a great new feature. Oh, and the other advantage? No bump required.

all credits goes to cnet