BlackBerry recently announced its first Android-based smartphone. (Photo : Reuters)
BlackBerry is bringing its highly anticipated Passport smartphone to the United States through AT&T.
The smartphone will be offered Feb. 20 and will be released alongside another BlackBerry phone, the Classic.
The Passport and the Classic will be the first handsets BlackBerry will market since its release of the Z10 and the Q10 phones.
BlackBerry's update to its product line comes at a very crucial time for the handset maker. Unit sales for the company have been steadily declining due to the surging popularity of iPhone and Android devices.
BlackBerry, which was once a dominant player in the smartphone industry, now only holds less than one percent of the smartphone market, according to CIO Today.
The BlackBerry Passport surprises many analysts as it sports a perfectly square design, which is unusual in most smartphones nowadays.
The handset has a 4.5-inch square touchscreen display will full HD capability and 1440 x 1440 resolution. It also has the ubiquitous tactile QWERTY keyboard common in earlier models of BlackBerry phones.
The Passport has a 2.26 GHz Krait quad-core processor with a 3 GB installed memory. It also has 32 GB of internal storage space that can be expanded through the microSD slot. It has a 13 megapixel main camera with autofocus, optical image stabilization and a LED flash.
The Passport will run on the BlackBerry 10.3 operating system.
AT&T will offer the BlackBerry Passport for free as long as customers opt-in for its mobile plan that starts at $21.67 per month.
Interested users can also choose to sign the two-year $199.99 agreement or they can just buy it directly and skip the contract for $649.99, according to Engadge.
The BlackBerry Classic was modeled on the BlackBerry Bold 9900. Like its predecessor, it has a physical keyboard and a trackpad.
The Classic will be available for free as long as customers opt-in for the $14 monthly mobile plan. If the customer chooses to sign a two year contract, the phone will be priced $50 and will cost $420 if the customer wants to purchase it directly without contract.
