BlackBerry is preparing its promising Android phone for the upcoming Mobile World Congress, as the initial smartphone under the TCL partnership. Ahead of the Barcelona event, the Canadian company has confirmed its new BlackBerry Mercury, now officially called BlackBerry KEYone, with an invitation while also letting customers around the world to witness its unveiling through livestream.
According to MNA, the Blackberry KEYone announcement will be slated for worldwide unveiling in Barcelona through a livestream via CrackBerry on Feb. 25 at 1PM EST. Fans could visit crackberry.com/bbmobilemwc2017 on the said date.
Based on reports, the new BlackBerry KEYone should put the brand's reputation back to its glory again after the recent news that the company has hit a zero percent market share in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to research firm Gartner's latest quarterly data.
Although the company delivered 208,000 smartphones during the fourth quarter of 2016, the numbers accounts only for devices that run BlackBerry OS and not Android. The said number also constitutes to less than half of the units sold by its competitors.
BlackBerry responded on the Gartner's report and cited the company's current strategy on providing state-of-the-art software for enterprise and devices. The company also reiterated its move towards licensing and software.
"As part of this aggressive pivot to software, we have shifted away from hardware and toward a licensing model where partners develop hardware and distribute and market the BlackBerry brand. We are very excited about the new BlackBerry-branded smartphones that our licensing partners - TCL, BB Merah Putih, and Optiemus - will soon be introducing," BlackBerry told GSMArena.
The BlackBerry KEYone/BlackBerry Mercury (BBB100-2) features a physical QWERTY keyboard and displays a 4.5-inch screen with a 1920X1080 resolution. Under the hood, the phone could expect a Snapdragon 625 chipset with octa-core CPU, Adreno 506 GPU, and 3GB of RAM alongside 32GB of internal storage.
As an added feature, its traditional keyboard's spacebar acts as a fingerprint scanner to unlock the device. It also houses a 3,400mAh battery with USB type C port. The remaining key specs, pricing, and availability of the BlackBerry Android phone will be revealed at the MWC 2017.