The latest BlackBerry Mercury leak comes straight from the source and reveals the smartphone's official name - BlackBerry KeyOne - as well as its specs and features.
Rumors about the upcoming BlackBerry Mercury have been making the rounds for quite some time now and the company also offered some teasers recently, boosting the hype before the handset makes its debut with a physical keyboard and Android Nougat on board.
BlackBerry KeyOne aka Mercury Official Page Accidentally Goes Live
Amid a slew of rumors and speculation, the official product page for the yet-to-be-announced BlackBerry KeyOne, aka Mercury, has accidentally gone live ahead of time. BlackBerry took it down shortly after, but nothing goes away on the internet and in the brief time that it was available, the premature product page spilled virtually all of the smartphone's secrets.
Just hours before Blackberry's Mobile World Congress 2017 event, the premature product page not only confirmed the official name of the handset, but also offered a lot of details regarding the smartphone's specifications, design, and features.
A Reddit thread quickly popped up and eagle-eyed users already took screenshots of the BlackBerry KeyOne product page while it was still live.
BlackBerry KeyOne (Mercury) Specs
The new BlackBerry KeyOne is the latest and the most powerful BlackBerry with a full-on QWERTY keyboard and the largest battery to ever grace a BlackBerry smartphone.
The handset sports a 4.5-inch scratch-resistant display with a resolution of 1,620 x 1,080 pixels and a 3:2 aspect ratio. Under the hood, the BlackBerry KeyOne packs an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, 3 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of native storage space.
Other specs include a 12-megapixel rear camera with 4K video recording at 30 fps, an 8-megapixel fixed-focus selfie cam with 1080p video, a 3,505 mAh battery, and USB Type-C. On the software front, the BlackBerry KeyOne runs Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box.
The main highlight of the BlackBerry KeyOne, aside from Android 7.1 Nougat on board, is the full QWERTY keyboard with customizable actions for each key, as well as the ability to swipe on the keys. At the same time, BlackBerry's suite of security features and messaging services are also major selling points.
BlackBerry KeyOne Price Could Make Or Break It
On the other hand, the specifications of the BlackBerry KeyOne are not exactly on par with the latest flagships, with the processor and RAM placing the smartphone in the midrange tier. That said, the BlackBerry KeyOne could turn out to be a hit if it comes at an attractive price point, but if it's too expensive it may not attract many fans. Most commenters on the Reddit thread note that the BlackBerry KeyOne seems good enough to consider, but not if it costs too much.
"[W]ith [a] spec sheet like that it shouldn't be above $400, if they threw in at least 4 GB of RAM and SD [Snapdragon} 820 then $650 would be [all right], maybe," writes one commenter.
BlackBerry has been trying to make a comeback in the smartphone market for a good while now and it has come up with some compelling devices, but the high price tags severely limited its success.
Oddly enough, it seems that the U.S. version of the BlackBerry KeyOne comes with 4G LTE bands that work well with T-Mobile and AT&T, but not with CDMA carriers such as Verizon and Sprint.
No official release date or pricing details are confirmed at this point, but more information should become available once BlackBerry formally introduces the KeyOne, aka Mercury, at the MWC. The unveiling will take place on Feb. 25, but it remains to be seen when the device will be ready to go on sale.
