Canadian smartphone manufacturer Blackberry Ltd. is reportedly working on a new smartphone called the Blackberry "Venice," which will run on the Android operating system for the first time instead of its own.
Recent reports have cited new images of the Venice from a reliable source as confirmation. One of the images shows the front of the Venice with what appears to be "dual curved edges" and visible Android buttons on the display screen.
The Venice comes with Blackberry's famous QWERTY physical keyboard and touchscreen capability on top. VR Zone reports that the Venice will be available in the U.S. market via wireless carrier AT&T. Tech Times confirms this and adds that the new handset will arrive in November.
Tech Times says another unnamed smartphone based on last year's Blackberry Passport device will likewise arrive with the Android operating system as well.
Crackberry also recently reported that two new Blackberry devices have made their way into India for testing after getting certified in Singapore and Malaysia. These handsets were listed as the Blackberry Venice and the Blackberry "Dallas", also codenamed "Oslo", according to Crackberry.
The Venice is expected to sport a 5.4 inch QHD display screen with a 1440 pixel resolution. It is expected to come with a sharp 16 mega pixel camera on the back and a 5 mega pixel shooter on the front.
Under the hood, it is expected to pack Qualcomm's Snapdragon 808 SoC processor along with 3 GB RAM. As of this time, it's still unclear when the new handset will come out and how much it might cost.
The Canadian company has been struggling in the smartphone business these past few years, with Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics dominating the competition.
Formerly known as Research in Motion Ltd., the company reportedly had 43% of US market share in 2010, but this has dwindled to 1.5% in April 2015, in part because of intense competition from Apple's iPhone and Google's Android.
