During CES 2017, Steve Cistulli, president and general manager of TCL Communication in North America, unveiled BlackBerry’s fourth Android-powered smartphone.
Currently going by the internal codename of ‘Mercury,’ the go-to-market branding will most likely be the DTEK70, which follows the DTEK60, DTEK50, and the Priv.
Mercury is set to be the first of many devices stemming from the newly cemented partnership between TCL (Alcatel) and BlackBerry, with a focus on three core features: security, productivity and reliability. Piggybacking on its recent shift to software and security, TCL and BlackBerry both agree that the next flagship BlackBerry will continue to offer “the most complete end-to-end smartphone security available on Android.”
As for specs, what is currently known is that the Mercury will indeed have the iconic physical QWERTY keyboard from days past. Similarly to other BlackBerry devices, such as the Priv and the Passport, the Mercury will sport a capacitive keyboard that allows for swiping and scrolling on the physical keys.
While we couldn’t confirm the processor, camera, internal storage, or what version of Android it will be running, here’s a list of confirmed specs that we have gathered to-date. The remaining details will be unveiled next month at Mobile World Congress.
“We look forward to unveiling details around this distinctly different and impressively designed BlackBerry smartphone around the Mobile World Congress timeframe next month,” said Cistulli.
BlackBerry Mercury (Possible name DTEK70) Specs
- Android OS (unconfirmed what version)
- Aluminum frame
- 4.5-inch display with a 3:2 aspect ratio
- Soft textured rubberized bac
- Physical QWERTY keyboard with capacitive keys, 4GB RAM
- Spacebar doubles as a fingerprint sensor
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Rear and front-facing camera with flash
- Stereo speaker on the bottom
- Bluetooth 4.2
- Convenience key
- USB-C port
- slot for a nano SIM and microSD card
Earlier rumours of the Mercury pointed towards the smartphone featuring a 2.0GHz Qualcomm processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, an 18 megapixel camera with an 8 megapixel front-facing secondary.
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