BlackBerry Priv under Verizon Wireless is probably on the way and might soon be available in the market, this is according to a tweet by Verizon’s executive official Jeffrey Nelson.
Responding to a tweet about the inquiry of the Verizon BlackBerry Priv, Nelson hinted on the probability of the pre-orders for the device beginning on March 3rd. The inquiry tweet from Tom S @tvnzs read in part; “……. is it true? @ Blackberry @ VerizonNews # Priv is available for pre-order on March 3rd?…….”
In response, the Verizon’s VP of Communications simply retweeted in part “…fingers crossed”. From the tweet, it seems that the carrier is scheduled to start the BlackBerry Priv pre-orders on the said date. Further reports have also revealed that the BlackBerry Priv would also officially launch on Verizon Wireless carrier on the 11th of March 2016. Interestingly, this is also the same day that the recently announced Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are expected to be officially released into the market.
The BlackBerry Priv
Priv is the first BlackBerry smartphone model to run on Android operating system. It is worth mentioning that brand BlackBerry has its own OS having the latest dubbed as “BlackBerry 10”. AT&T and T-Mobile have their own Priv versions priced at $740 and $720 respectively. On last Christmas Eve, Verizon’s Blackberry Priv variant got the FCC certification. This was about two months later after photos of a BlackBerry Priv branded Verizon were doing rounds on various social media platforms.
Priv boasts of a 5.4-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a QHD resolution of 2560 by 1440 pixels working out to a 541ppi density. The screen is Corning Gorilla Glass 4-protected and also curved on the edges. The phone has a physical QWERTY keyboard. Blackberry Priv is powered with a 6-Core Snapdragon 808 chipset with two cores clocked at 1.8GHz and the remaining four cores having a speed of 1.44GHz.
Running on Android Lollipop, Priv has a 3GB RAM with 32GB internal memory storage and an expandable microSD slot that supports up to 2TB of storage. The phone features an 18MP primary snapper that has OIS, PDAF, dual-LED and f/2.2 aperture, among others. The secondary camera of this device is of 2MP and is capable of handling video chats and selfies as well. There are also a number of features that are supported on this device. The Priv has a non-removable battery having a capacity of 3410mAh.
Will Verizon’s BlackBerry Priv thrive in the market?
With AT&T and T-Mobile’s Priv models already in the market, Verizon’s move to introduce their own variant is something worth watching. The device, however, has yet to prove to be a standout among many other Android devices in the market. The fact that Verizon is working to unveil its own BlackBerry Priv may hint that the device is performing decently in the already smartphone-laden Android market.