BlackBerry unveiled its new smartphone that sports its earlier devices' signature features at New York, Frankfurt and Singapore Wednesday, Market Watch has learned.
The Canadian company has re-implemented the familiar physical features of BlackBerry phones released in 2012. The new smartphone was dubbed "The Classic" to emphasize its throwback characteristics. This move was made to reignite the company's sales by giving more attention to their business consumers.
Classic features a full QWERTY physical keyboard, physical navigation keys and a trackpad familiar to old-time BlackBerry users. The device also features function keys that are not available in other recent iterations from the company.
The device has a 3.5-inch touchcreen Gorilla Glass-hardened 720x720 LCD with a pixel density of 294ppi. It runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM. It also has a 16GB internal storage, which can be expanded up to 128GB.
The BlackBerry Classic has an 8MP, backside illuminated, 5 element F2.2 camera on its rear and a 2MP shooter in front, which can be used for BBM meetings, Skype and taking selfies, according to CrackBerry. The rear camera can capture 1080p videos with 5x digital zoom. The front camera, on the other hand, can capture up to 720p videos with 3x digital zoom.
Bluetooth 4.0 Low energy is also supported and NFC has been integrated to assist in mobile payments and file exchanges. It also has a Wi-Fi Direct, Miracast and DLNA. The device features SlimPort for USB charging and HDMI out and autonomous GPS assistance. Besides the LTE support of the device, users are also entitled to 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi in 2.4GHz / 5GHz flavors and the USB On-The-Go feature, which was present in BlackBerry Z30 and BlackBerry Passport.
Blackberry Classic offers productivity tools like the Hub, Assistant, and Blend running on BlackBerry 10 OS. Android apps are also available and can be accessed through the Amazon Appstore, which is already preloaded on the device.
With these specifications, BlackBerry Ltd. targets easy typing and simplified procedure in doing business-related tasks. It also highlighted the battery life and security that the device can offer.
BlackBerry Classic is out and can be delivered "through local carriers around the world," according to The Verge. AT&T and Verizon are also selling the mobile gadget in 2015, although they have yet to announce their carrier pricing. The device can be purchased through BlackBerry and Amazon for $499.