Security, of course, is one of the major attributes of any BlackBerry device, and the company’s latest smartphone, the Priv, is no exception. According to reports, the device is now receiving its February security patches, in keeping with Blackberry’s promise of continuing to put security first and foremost even as the company is transitioning from BB OS to Android. The news comes by way of a post on Google+ by Mr. Will Keaney, who posted what he claims to be a couple of screenshots from his Priv, which seem to suggest that an update is indeed available for the latest flagship smartphone from the Canadian company once known as Research in Motion (RIM). While not a whole lot more is known about the incoming update right now, media speculations indicate that the update might hit unlocked devices first, before rolling out to carrier-specific variants.
Coming to the update itself, the build number seems to be AAD444, and is meant for the version that comes with model number STV100-1. The new software states that the Android Security Patch Level is February 1st, 2016, and the Android version stays put at 5.1.1 Lollipop, so no new features should be expected from this new software which seems to be exclusively a security patch. Although there’s no changelog at the moment, Google is expected to officially release one at some stage sooner rather than later, but even then, probably all the patched vulnerabilities will not be listed for ‘security reasons’. Either way, it’s certainly reassuring to see at least some Android OEMs taking security seriously, as only Samsung, LG and HTC has thus far been keeping up with Google’s monthly update schedule, but that too, only for their premium devices. BlackBerry, meanwhile, had rolled out the January security update to the Priv earlier this month.
Taking a quick glance at the tech specs of the first-ever Android smartphone from the Canadian company, the device comes with a sliding physical QWERTY keyboard, and features a 5.4-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels (QHD). The handset is powered by an MSM8992 Snapdragon 808 SoC from Qualcomm and sports 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. While the rear-facing primary camera on the Priv is an 18-megapixel unit, the front-facing selfie-cam on the handset comes with a 2-megapixel sensor. The smartphone runs on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the box and carries a 3,410 mAh Li-Ion battery.
