Blackberry’s Venice Rumored To Be Powered By Android

A device of many firsts, has BlackBerry’s fortunes running on it.

Blackberry, once a stalwart of the mobile phone industry, hit a fairly big speed breaker over the last 5–7 years. Having boarded the smartphone train late, they tried really hard to catch-up.

Releasing a reworked and contemporary smartphone-oriented operating system, the BB OS 10, full with large icons, touch-oriented and even an App Store; and to harness that they created one of their best phones ever, the Z10 (it won the Red Dot Award in 2013 for Product Design).

They then followed it up with their beautifully executed Porsche-designed Porsche P’9981 smartphone (won the Best of the Best category award in 2013), the Q10, Q5, Z30 (all won Red Dot Awards in 2014). They even launched their most innovative smartphone ever — the BlackBerry Passport.

Each of these devices was very well appreciated in the marketplace, respected for their great build quality and decent pricing (by and large); yet, none of these attempts helped BlackBerry revive customer interest to the point of winning sales.

We believe that happened largely because of two reasons — the interface of BB OS 10 isn’t exactly in the same league as Android or iOS, and because their app store called BlackBerry World is a fairly desolate place. Most app developers have forgotten about it, considering how busy they remain in just having their apps be compatible to 9 gazillion Android handsets of varying families ages, capabilities and OS versions.

in an effort to make a comeback in BlackBerry is rumoured to be doing what Nokia said they’d do — launch a smartphone that’d be a blend of Android and BB features. Expected in November 2015, the device codenamed ‘Blackberry Venice’ is unique in two ways.

First, it is the first BlackBerry phone in eons to bear their trademark and exceptionally popular slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard, and second, it will be the first BlackBerry phone ever to run on a non-BlackBerry OS.

Talk about firsts!

Some leaked images of the phone clearly display an Android OS (probably Marshmallow), with BlackBerry apps installed on the device — it seems that trademark BlackBerry apps like the BlackBerry Hub, BBM, Worklife for BB, BBM Meetings, BBM Protected along with their famous proprietary security apps are all on there!

Let’s get back to that beautiful keyboard. Traditionally BlackBerry’s keyboards have been stellar, and have been one of the biggest causes of undying love from their user. The keyboard on the Venice is even better!

It’s slim, it looks comfortable, and we’re sure it slides out effortlessly from below that screen. While its a fully functional keyboard meaning it has all the keys you need, its not a passive one. This is the bound to be the same hybrid keyboard first seen with the BlackBerry Passport — it supports and partners with the screen via capacitive touch on the keys! Picture yourself scrolling through documents, images or surfing the internet just by flicking your thumb up/down (and in other directions) over the keyboard!

We tried it on the BlackBerry Passport and absolutely, absolutely loved it. It’s the perfect solution to bridge the user-interaction gap faced when using a touchscreen+keyboard device. It really does provide an edge to the Venice.

Based on preliminary rumours the Venice will feature a 5.4-inch QHD (2560x1440 resolution) Super AMOLED display and is powered by 1.8 GHz hexa-core 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, 3 GB RAM, an 18 megapixel rear camera (with Optical Image Stabilisation, and dual-LED flash) and a 5 megapixel front camera.

Design-wise it looks attractive in the leaked images — the power/sleep button is on the left, the volume rocker on the right, along with the famed & patented customisable smart button. A microUSB charging port and 3.5mm audio jack is located at the bottom with slots for the SIM card and microSD card located at the top of the device for easy access. The speaker grill is located at the bottom of the front panel as we have seen in recent HTC devices.

The launch dates aren’t precisely known yet, nor the price, but it’s confirmed that the Venice will land in US markets around November 2015.

Don’t expect Venice to be inexpensive though, as it packs high-end specs with a great focus on security making it a suitable buy for the enterprise users. It will be a talk among the existing BlackBerry loyalists as they won’t have to sacrifice or choose sides between usability and security, for much longer and will be able to enjoy the best of both worlds with the first fully Android-powered Blackberry handset.

So, BlackBerry could well be hitting a home run with the Venice (update: apparently this device is named the Priv, as per official announcements from BlackBerry). They’ve got some great hardware, good looking design and build, trademark apps and security, and have possibly plugged their two biggest stumbling blocks — a contemporary smartphone OS, and a thriving app store that is well tended to by developers. At the same time, BlackBerry has shrewdly leveraged their two biggest USPs — device and data security, and the brilliantly designed keyboard which gives BlackBerry a leg up in the entire marketplace (not only amongst Android brands) as almost all smartphone brands have dumped physical keyboards or touch+keyboard designs a long time ago, yet users have been secretly wishing for them.

Run with it BlackBerry! You just might have that winner you needed. We’re rooting for you!

Originally published at Chip-Monks.