After failing in sustaining their position in the market with their own operating system, finally, BlackBerry boarded on Android bandwagon with Priv. It’s the first phone from the Canadian smartphone maker on the Android platform and it will be available on both Amazon India’s virtual shelves as well as offline retail stores from January 30 onwards at Rs. 62,990.
Last October, BlackBerry showcased and went on to Priv retail in the United States followed by a launch in Canada in November 2015.
Following it old philosophy, BlackBerry has conceptualised its phone keeping enterprise users in mind and it reflects on its features list. Just like past, BlackBerry has given additional emphasis on security and introduced BlackBerry DTEK – an extra layer of security, which will examine every app and permissions it requests from the user. It will also shut the door for apps from unverified sources and third party stores. This app also rate user’s smartphone security based on number of elements. It also identifies apps that are attempting to steal personal information.
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Priv takes us down the memory of a time between 2007-2010 when slider phone were considered as trendy and cool. Over the years, BlackBerry has been popular for its physical keyboard and company has taken that legacy forward with BlackBerry Priv. Apart from Slider QWERTY keyboard, it has also included BB Hub, BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), BlackBerry Device Search and BlackBerry Password Keeper bloatware.
In terms of specifications, the BlackBerry Priv sports a 5.4-inch WQHD AMOLED curved edges display with 2560x1440pixels resolution which is layered with Corning Gorilla Glass 4. At the heart of it, beats a Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 808 hexa-core SoC which is accompanied by Adreno 418GPU and 3gigs of RAM. The phone comes with 32GB of inbuilt storage and a microSD card can be added to expand it up to 2TB.
The Prive is armed with an 18-megapixel primary snapper with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and PDAF at the rear side and a 2-megapixel selfie camera at the front. Primary camera is also capable of recording 4K videos at 30fps and 1080p videos at 60fps. Under its back hood, features a 3410mAh battery which supports Quick Charge 2.0. BlackBerry Prive runs on customized version of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop OS and offers connectivity options like 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, GPS and Wi-Fi Direct.
Key Specifications of BlackBerry Priv
| Model | BlackBerry Priv |
| Display | 5.4-Inch AMOLED WQHD display, 1440×2560 pixels, 540ppi Gorilla Glass 4 |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 hexa-core chipset; Adreno 418 GPU |
| RAM | 3GB RAM |
| Internal Storage | 32GB, 2TB MicroSD card support |
| Software | Android 5.1.1 Lollipop |
| Primary Camera | 18MP Sensor, PDAF, OIS Dual LED Flash, 4K recording |
| Secondary Camera | 2MP Sensor, HD Recording |
| Dimensions and Weight | 147.00 x 77.20 x 9.40mm and 192g |
| Battery | 3410 mAh |
| Sensors | Fingerprint, Gravitation, Proximity, e-compass, Light |
| Others | 4G LTE, 3G,WiFi a/b/g/n/ac, GPS |
| Price | Rs. 62,990 |
