It's beginning to look a lot like success for Blackberry's Android-powered Priv handset.
Set to ship the first week of this month, Blackberry is now saying that demand for its latest handset has pushed shipping dates as far back as the third week of November.
A visit over to the Blackberry store online reveals that the Priv will indeed begin shipping "the week of November 30, 2015."
"We've begun fulfilling shipments as of Nov. 6, but due to demand we've phased shipments and this is for next wave," confirms a Blackberry spokesperson.
The Priv has been seen as Blackberry's final attempt to remain relevant in the smartphone business since it's had to adopt an operating system not of its own. Ditching Blackberry OS in favor of Android, the Priv is the Canadian company's first Android handset, and based on the reception for the phone, it may not be its last either.
Beloved by Blackberry aficionados is the brand's signature physical QWERTY keyboards. In what looks like the company's best attempt so far to marry both a physical keyboard and a touchscreen, the Priv features a new design with a sliding form factor. The device's 5.4-inch AMOLED Gorilla Glass 4 screen slides up to reveal the iconic keyboard Blackberry's have been well-known and well-loved for.
Other key specifications of the Priv include a 1,440 by 2,560 pixels screen resolution which rounds out to a very competitive 541ppi pixel density. Powering the device is a Snapdragon 808 processor alongside a hexa-core processor and an Adreno 418 GPU. An adequate 3GB of RAM and a minimum of 32GB of storage for up to 2TB of storage with microSD completes the device. Business users running around all day on their Privs should also see their units last all day with them as its equipped with a hefty 3,410mAh battery, too.
Combined with Blackberry's much touted security features, Privs sold out within hours on Amazon. Customers early enough to preorder the device with AT&T started having their units shipped on time. Unfortunately, as demand has gotten so high in recent days, newly interested buyers are a bit out of luck. Regardless, it's taken even longer for Blackberry to finally take the plunge over to Android and it looks like it may have been worth the wait.
