In a glitzy event held yesterday, BlackBerry Malaysia launched the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone, running on the company’s next-gen mobile operating system, BlackBerry 10. The local launching comes three weeks after the global launch, which is quite a feat compared to other devices.

The BlackBerry Z10 marks the company’s first full-touch screen smartphone, a radical departure away from the QWERTY models of the past. Perhaps rightly so, too: the Z10 is unlike any other BlackBerry device, and is down mainly due to the BlackBerry 10 platform, which is a gesture-centric operating system that, while a little awkward to navigate at first, becomes surprisingly intuitive pretty quickly.

Find out more about the Z10′s local pricing, availability and “trade up” program, after the jump!

The Z10, as we know, has a 4.2-inch, 1280 x 768 screen and powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core 1.5GHz processor paired with 2GB of RAM. There’s also 16GB of flash storage, which is expandable via microSD. Round the back, the Z10 has a backside-illuminated (BSI) 8MP rear camera capable of 1080p video recording, and the Time Shift feature. There’s also a large 2MP front-facing camera perfect for BBM video calling. Connectivity wise, there is NFC, WiFi, Bluetooth, and microUSB and microHDMI ports.

In its bid to further boost the app ecosystem on BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry Malaysia also announced a strategic partnership with Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), where MDeC will provide a channel for Malaysian BlackBerry 10 developers to work on local applications, as well as providing assistance for the local BB10 developer community. Currently, there are already more than 100 local applications available for BB10, including Air Asia, CIMB Clicks, The Star Online, NST, Berita Harian, and OneKedai, which won the BlackBerry JamHack Malaysia leg last year.

The BlackBerry Z10 will be available from April 8 at a retail price of RM2188. However, the Z10 will also be available exclusively from Maxis from March 9, with the local telco offering a pre-registration program starting from today (to register, head on to the Maxis page here). However, details on device subsidy and data bundles have not been announced. DiGi and Celcom will announce their BlackBerry Z10 data bundle on April 8.

In addition, BlackBerry Malaysia also had some good news to loyal BlackBerry users. It is offering a “trade up” program, where those using older BlackBerry models wishing to upgrade to the Z10 can trade in their old models – subject to the terms and conditions stated below – and receive a pretty hefty rebate, ranging from RM125 up to RM480, depending on the traded model. However, the trade up program will be limited to 3000 units only.