BlackBerry's first Android smartphone made its debut in 2015 and launched in several markets since, but it's only now making its way to India. The smartphone has stirred great interest worldwide mainly because it marks a great shift for BlackBerry, moving from its proprietary OS to the more popular Android.
Tech Times previously reported that BlackBerry had an event scheduled for Jan. 28 in New Delhi, India, planning to announce the BlackBerry Priv release in the country.
The day has now come and the BlackBerry Priv is official in India, complete with specific price and launch details. The smartphone will go on sale on Jan. 30 for INR 62,990, which translates to a whopping price of $925.
#PRIV by BlackBerry to be available in India from 30 Jan 2016 at an MRP of INR 62,990/-. #PRIVinIndia pic.twitter.com/8khoNjwy9I
— BlackBerry India (@BlackBerryIN) January 28, 2016
That's more than $200 steeper than the price of the BlackBerry Priv in the United States. The T-Mobile BlackBerry Priv, for instance, just made its debut at a $719 full retail price, in addition to attractive leasing options.
As a reminder, the BlackBerry Priv sports a 5.43-inch AMOLED display with a QHD resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 64-bit hexa-core processor with Adreno Adreno 418 graphics and 3 GB of RAM under the hood.
Other specs include 32 GB of built-in storage space that's expandable up to 2TB via microSD, an 18-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization (OIS), a 5-megapixel front camera, and a 3,410 mAh battery. The smartphone features a handy QWERTY keyboard and runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the box, with some neat BlackBerry additions on the side.
Combining its advanced security expertise with Google's popular Android mobile OS is widely considered the best move BlackBerry made in years. The Canadian OEM lost significant ground to rivals and the BlackBerry Priv is its latest attempt to regain some of that lost market share.
The BlackBerry Priv's release in India was highly anticipated, but it remains to be seen whether that price point will attract enough customers. The smartphone was not the cheapest in any market, but that $929 price tag in India seems a bit too much.
