BlackBerry is to iPhone as Britney Spears is to Taylor Swift. And according to leaks, the king of mobile phones will come back with a vengeance with high-end Blackberry Priv, which will come at a premium price.
A synergy of Android and BlackBerry, Priv will be feature-packed with the latest in Android and the Blackberry technologies we used to love.
But is Blackberry really keeping up?
With the 5.4-inch 1440 x 2560 QHD resolution screen, it looks likes BlackBerry is not about to miss out on the phablet trend.
Packed with Android Lollipop, BlackBerry Priv will also sport a Snapdragon 808 chipset, hexa-core CPU, Andreno 418 GPU, and 3 GB RAM. While hexa-core doesn't sound as impressive as octa-core, we have yet to see if this CPU will be powerful. Rival elite phone Samsung has always boasted the most advance CPUs in the Android industry, but the iPhone magically manages to be fast and savvy despite having a laidback CPU.
As for the camera, Priv is reported to sport an 18-megapixel rear cam and 5 MP front. The phone will come with Schneider-Kreuznach optics. Considering BlackBerry's vivid and advanced cameras in the past, we can look forward to Priv's snapper, but we have yet to know the aperture and the enhancement features of the cam.
While BlackBerry has confirmed the existence of Priv and the Weibo account of popular hacker @Leaksfly has revealed more features, the exact specifications of the new BlackBerry will only be known upon its launch. Nonetheless, BlackBerry have for fans some hints on its blog.
"First, I have 100 percent confidence in our new Priv smartphone. Not only will it bring BlackBerry's strong privacy DNA to the Android platform, but Priv will deliver top-of-the-line features for your maximum productivity, including an oversized screen and, underneath it, a smooth sliding mechanism that unveils the iconic BlackBerry keyboard," wrote CEO John Chen on the BlackBerry blog.
The team is convinced that there is a huge underserved market of Android users who are in dire need of tighter security and privacy features while enjoying the Google-owned mobile platform.
The unveiling is said to be on November, in time for the holidays -- when smartphone sales peak.
To be launched first in China, the phone is priced at $630, higher than most phones but a little cheaper than the Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6s.
BlackBerry is betting its all on Priv. The success of the phone will re-establish the brand in the elite phone division. The failure of Priv might once and for all end BlackBerry's existence in the smartphone industry as the company has suffered from losses already.
