BlackBerry is expected to unveil a new smartphone at its press event at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017. The impending handset has been codenamed Blackberry Mercury and according to recent rumors it seems that it is gearing up for its MWC launch.
According to latest reports, BlackBerry Mercury has received its Wi-Fi certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance (WFA), just before its rumored launch on Feb. 25.
The WFA listing does not reveal much details about the impending smartphone's features and specifications, except that the device will run on the Android operating system and will have BBB100-2 as its model number.
Although it may not seem like a big piece of news but BlackBerry Storm 9530, was launched without the Wi-Fi connectivity which proved to be a huge mistake by the company. Blackberry later rectified the blunder by giving Wi-Fi connectivity to Blackberry Storm 2.
BlackBerry Mercury: What To Expect?
Per the reports, the BlackBerry Mercury may sport a 4.5-inch display and is likely to come with a physical QWERTY keyboard. Under the hood, the smartphone may house a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, with an octa-core processor coupled with Adreno 506 GPU.
The upcoming handset may come with 3 GB of RAM along with a native storage of 32 GB and is likely to run on the Android 7.0 Nougat operating system. There is a possibility of a fingerprint scanner being embedded inside the space bar of the physical QWERTY keyboard. It is expected that the smartphone will be powered by a 3,400 mAh battery.
The exclusion of Wi-Fi connectivity from BlackBerry 9530 Storm met majorly with negative reviews and disappointed most of the customers. The clever inclusion of fingerprint sensor along with Wi-Fi connectivity in the BlackBerry Mercury can be seen as a move to pacify the customers and make them happy.
Moreover, most of the recent smartphones comes with a fingerprint scanner embedded either on the home button or rear of the device, and it has now become a standard market feature. If rumors come true and BlackBerry Mercury indeed houses a fingerprint scanner, then it can be said that the once popular company is trying to keep pace with consumer demands.
Release
There has been no information pertaining to the availability and pricing BlackBerry Mercury, but it is expected that the smartphone will be offered by all major U.S. carriers. Some recent reports suggested that Verizon may initially get exclusive rights of BlackBerry Mercury after its release in U.S.
Verizon is already selling BlackBerry Priv, so it won't come as a surprise if the BlackBerry Mercury becomes the second BlackBerry phone to get listed on its shelves. BlackBerry Mercury is the last smartphone to be designed in-house by BlackBerry.
