BlackBerry finally officially announced their first Android-powered phone called ‘Priv’. It was going through a lot of rumours and the device was previously known ‘Venice’. Seriously? Blackberry now have to make phone with open-source Android operating system? Yes, that is correct. For the past few years the company is less profitable and had to cut employees. They didn’t announce any official specs yet, but Priv will be a sliding qwerty keyboard and dual curved edge phone along with strong industry level security. This is definitely a good news for Android and BlackBerry users, as the phone will be released with high-end specs as well.
Launching an Android device is a tremendous new market opportunity as we continue our focus on building a cross-platform strategy. It’s a terrific proposition for dedicated Android users who are seeking greater productivity and powerful privacy features.
Priv will be running on Android Lollipop or upgraded version and will be launched in store and online in the major countries. Leaked pictures about the device shows it is running on Android 5.1.1 with a 5.4″ QHD display. The phone will be carrying an amazing 18MP camera at the back and a 5MP selfie shooter at the front. Internal memory choice is 32GB and it is expandable, not like the iPhones, Google Nexus or latest Samsung Galaxy S6 devices where you can not expand the memory with a microSD card if you wanted to. Also, Priv will be shipped with Snapdragon 808 application processor with 3GB RAM for speed and multitasking.
Several years ago, the company released BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) on Play Store for Android users. Previously, their secure messaging service was only available to BlackBerry device users. They are also working on BlackBerry OS 10 and planning on releasing it next year. This is a good move from BlackBerry to attract new Android users and old BB device users. What do you think about the phone? Are you interested in getting one?
[Source][Via]