(Reuters) – BlackBerry shares rose 14 percent on Monday, fueled by takeover speculation and news that AT&T Inc will start selling the new BlackBerry Z10 touchscreen smartphone in the United States on March 22.

The speculation was sparked by a comment from the head of China’s Lenovo Group Ltd, who told a French newspaper on Monday that the personal computer maker might consider an acquisition of Canada’s BlackBerry at some point in the future.

“External growth remains a question of opportunities,” said Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo’s CEO, in an interview with Les Échos.

Any interesting comment and probably a good fit too.

In a rather unusual move Sprint has confirmed it won’t be selling the Blackberry Z10 but it will be selling the thumb keyboard Q10 saying its customers prefer actual keyboards.

Seems a strange move.

BlackBerry is pushing out a new of BB10, version 10.0.10.85. Battery performance has been addressed with over 60 power optimisation,improved performance of third-party apps, the camera should now produce superior low-light snaps, in-browser video playback has also been tweaked, importing online contacts should work better, as should call logging in the BlackBerry Hub and a fix for all the issues with Gmail calendars. The OTA update is 150MB and is being rolled out now and over the coming weeks.

Gentel, a Canadian retailer with over 330 stores in Canada has said the Z10 is outselling the iPhone and S3. Sounds good but is it loyal blackberry fans trying the device out as its different.

Many have said Blackberry want survive but if people buy and like the Z10 anything is possible.

My only gripe with the Z10 is its battery life, otherwise it’s quite a neat piece of kit. And apps, the lack of native apps.

Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEO of BlackBerry has ditched his shares.
According to a new regulatory, filing Balsillie late last year dumped his stake in BlackBerry, unloading about 26.8 million shares or a roughly 5 percent of the company. Balsillie hasn’t responded to a request for comment on the sale and BlackBerry declined to provide one saying it doesn’t comment on holdings of individual shareholders.

In pre-market trading Thursday, RIM’s shares tanked more than 6 percent, tumbling to about $13.00.

Looks like he exited with some liquid assets while he could.

So yesterday I was out looking to see the new Z10. Every single mobile phone shop had a demo out on display. All the network shops and all the independents. I have even seen it in white. That’s a great colour for the Z10.

So in preparation I watched a number of YouTube videos so I knew how to use the phone. And then there is the big but. Every single Z10 in every store was locked in some demo retail mode. The demo retail mode was limited and didn’t allow you to flow between screens and applications as you would in the real world. You were forced to do what it wanted you to do, and that was really sluggish.

So what can I tell you. It looked good. The screen was excellent. The keyboard was clever. There is a learning curve with the predictions but I quickly picked it up. The Hub looked good, and everything else seemed clever in concept as I didn’t get to use it properly.

What I did observe was people trying to use it, and walking away, commenting it is too difficult to use.

To add insult to injury, none of the stores had the password to exit the demo mode.

Why would you buy something brand new if you can’t road test it properly?

It seems Blackberry have thought of everything when it comes accessories including a battery charger that can charge a spare battery at the same time, and smart cases as pictured below.

The spare battery will be essential with this phone as it eats juice fairly quickly.