Rumors have been going around that Blackberry will come out with a smartphone that will have a platform other than its own Blackberry OS. With the latest round of leaks online, it seems that the company is indeed working on developing an Android-powered model.
According to the leaked images via a Twitter post from Mashable freelancer journalist Evan Blass, the upcoming phone looks to follow the design of recently-released devices from other manufacturers, particularly Samsung. The phone's rugged yet stylish edges closely resemble that of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. However, unlike today's smartphones, the reported Android Blackberry will have a pullout physical keyboard, a staple of previous business people-targeted Blackberry devices.
Blackberry has been known to provide the niche market with smartphones that have physical keyboards, a hit among business people and those who find it difficult to type and text using on-screen letters. The most recent Blackberry smartphone, the Passport, also has a physical keyboard incorporated in the design, in addition to an on-screen one. Meanwhile, some reports suggest that Blackberry will also be coming out with a device having a slide-out keyboard as one of its features.
The upcoming phone also seems to closely resemble the one Blackberry unveiled last March at the Mobile World Congress, a combination of the already-launched Passport and a reportedly slider-type smartphone. In addition, the upcoming Android phone, codenamed Venice, is also reportedly coming first to AT&T subscribers.
If the most recent Blackberry Passport would serve as a template, the upcoming new Android phone is expected to come with either a 4.5-inch HD screen, or have its dimensions closer to other recent releases, a 5.4-inch display with Quad HD resolution. It will also feature a 13 MP main camera, a Snapdragon 801 chip or higher, and at least 3 GB of RAM. It will also come out of the box running the Android 5.0 Lollipop.
