During Mobile World Congress in March, BlackBerry announced it would release a QWERTY slider device that features a “dual-curved display.” According to reputable device leaker Evan Blass, BlackBerry is poised to launch this Android-powered device in November.
Blass notes that all four major carriers are on board, which are AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile, AT&T, but there is no word on Canadian launch partners. A forum post on CrackBerry also suggests the launch date is currently pencilled in for November 16th.
In addition to the November date, Blass has also leaked a new image of the Venice slider, now showing the physical keyboard. This lines up to the actual device that Ron Louks, BlackBerry’s head of devices, quickly showed it off at MWC.
From the bottom-up angle, it looks like Venice will feature a front-facing speaker right below the screen, where the slider mechanism reveals the keyboard. The Android Lollipop screen also has a number of Google services, including Chrome, Analytics, Play Store, Drive, Maps and Photos, so it looks to be GAPPs-approved. In addition, the homescreen shows Microsoft’s Bing app, with whom BlackBerry is partnered, in addition to a Canada Post app, likely for Canadian marketing.
A second leaked photo shows off what appears to be the BlackBerry Hub, which the company could potentially integrate into the launcher and, like on BlackBerry 10, keep to the left-most panel.
The Venice’s rumoured specs include a 5.4-inch 2560×1440 pixel display, 18MP OIS camera, 5MP front-facing camera, 1.8 GHz Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB RAM, and Android Lollipop (though hopefully that will change to Marshmallow).
Update: Yet another leak of the BlackBerry Venice has surfaced, once again courtesy of Evan Blass. This time it comes in the form of a GIF and shows off all angles of the Android-powered slider.
Eye candy. pic.twitter.com/GtJwOfOus8
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 19, 2015
.@halfnibble More of an "Android Maya job," innit? pic.twitter.com/4Fhll0Bfv0
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 19, 2015
[source] @evleaks [/source]
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