BlackBerry who at one stage were able to demand a premium price for their smartphones are back trying to capture the top end of the smartphone market with a new Android based device that makes an Apple smartphone look cheap.
The new Blackberry Priv which has already gone on sale in the UK at a staggering $1,229 has already been shown to Telstra and Optus executives who are believed to have rejected the new Blackberry model at this price.
The Android-powered BlackBerry Priv is set to be available from November 6th, for the money you get a bog standard Android OS a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a 5.4-inch touchscreen.
At this price the device is significantly more expensive than the top end iPhone 6 or the latest Samsung Galaxy Edge or Galaxy Note 5.
The device has a 2560 x 1440 (540ppi) display, a hexacore Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage that can be expanded to 2TB.
It’ll also have an 18-megapixel camera with a dual LED flash, along with a 3410mAh battery and Android 5.1.1 Lollipop.
The Priv looks like it’ll be one of the last throws of the dice for the former smartphone pioneer.
The company has hinted it may get out of the hardware trade within a year, in order to focus on providing its security platform as a service.
