While BlackBerry’s CEO, John Chen, had already confirmed that his company was working on a smartphone that ran on Android and also confirmed that the name is the Priv. We hadn’t heard anything official about the phone. Including when it was going to be available, what kind of specs it has, etc. However, BlackBerry has just published a pre-registration page for the BlackBerry Priv, and it gives us a bit more information this time around. We do know that it’s going to sport a 5.4-inch dual curved display, possibly not as pronounced as the Galaxy S6 Edge or Edge+, at least that is what the images lead us to believe. It’s going to be powered by a 3410mAh battery. And of course, it wouldn’t be a BlackBerry without the physical QWERTY Keyboard, which slides out. So you can have your choice of using the on-screen keyboard or the physical one.
BlackBerry is also touting the camera and audio here on the Priv. Stating “extraordinary audio quality”, however not telling us whether that’s HiFi, similar to what ZTE used in the AXON or something else. BlackBerry also says “Schneider-Kreuznach certified camera”, so it looks like we might have a pretty decent camera on this BlackBerry Priv. Honestly, it looks like a really good device. Now this is going to be running Android, and not Android in a virtual machine like they did with BlackBerry 10. So this means we have full Google services, which are confirmed by BlackBerry stating “…wide world of Google Play™ store apps.” That’s a great move for BlackBerry there.
Now we still don’t have any idea as to when the Priv will be available, or even officially announced, but we do have a pre-registration page which tells us it is coming soon. Hopefully BlackBerry can get the Priv out and in stores in time for the holiday season. As it will be the only Android smartphone with a full physical QWERTY keyboard, which means it’ll be pretty popular. This could also help Google secure some of the enterprise space with BlackBerry’s security features that will be available on the Priv as well.