It may seem long ago now, but BlackBerry was once a titan of the cellphone market. Trusted for its encrypted messaging and trademark keyboard, the devices were lauded for a cutting-edge approach and user friendliness. At its peak in 2013, there were over 85 million subscribers of the product worldwide. The Canadian developer has since seen better days, and their pursuit of new hardware was eventually put on the back burner. We weren’t too sure what the future held for parent company BBL, and with the rise of the iPhone, Samsung, and now Google smartphone, we naturally wrote BlackBerry off.
Earlier this week, images began to surface online of new BlackBerry hardware. Not much was known of the new smartphone, as its price, release date, specs, and even name were left to our imagination. Industry experts are calling it the BlackBerry Mercury, and have been teasing the concept model through various news outlets. The most notable features of the piece, are that it blends a taptic QWERTY keyboard with an elongated touch screen. The Mercury is also armed with Android software, making it relatively accessible to users of Samsung, Motorola, and HTC devices.
This latest development comes after an announcement last September, which stated BlackBerry would cease producing its own hardware – opting to partner with Chinese developer, TCL. We’ll have to wait and see what the Mercury does for the brand, when it becomes available for purchase in the near future. In the meantime, you can check out an official teaser video below.
Enjoy our official first look at what’s to come from the newest BlackBerry smartphone. More to come at MWC. pic.twitter.com/gHkwepCPbJ
— Steve Cistulli (@SteveCistulli) January 4, 2017
