BlackBerry unveiled its latest smartphone, a touchscreen Android device aimed at mid-market users who value the Canadian company’s reputation for enhanced security.
The DTEK50 will cost US$299 (R4 300 before duties and other taxes) and is available now for pre-order in the US, Canada, and Western Europe, BlackBerry said in a statement Tuesday.
CEO John Chen has outsourced the manufacturing and some design of its smartphones as the company seeks ways to cut costs amid declining sales of the devices that were once its flagship product.
BlackBerry’s device team now largely focuses on adding the company’s trademark security features to the Android operating system, which runs its latest phones. The DTEK50 is the second phone to run on Google’s Android operating system after the Priv was launched last year.
The 135g DTEK50 has a 5,2-inch scratch-resistant display with a 1080p resolution, a 13-megapixel auto-focus camera and supports SD cards up to 2TB in size. There’s 16GB of flash memory, two quad-core processors and a 2 610mAh battery.
Watch the DTEK50 promotional video:
Chen has narrowed the focus of his smartphone business to serving the large government and corporate customers who also buy BlackBerry’s software products and want to equip their employees with work-specific handsets rather than let them use personal devices. He has said he plans to make the money-losing hardware business profitable by September. — (c) 2016 Bloomberg LP
- A BlackBerry spokeswoman said the device is expected to go on sale in South Africa in the coming months
- Device specifications in this article added by TechCentral