Blackberry PRIV

BlackBerry’s first Android-powered phone, the Priv, was launched in October 2015. It is a device focused on privacy and intuitive type, with the name a play on the words privacy and privilege.

This handset has a 5.4-inch AMOLED screen with 2560×1440 pixels resolution. The pixel density is nearly 540 pixels per inch which makes the display incredibly sharp. This phone has a curved edge screen, which is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4. The rear is made of glass weave material. The design is reminiscent of the Dell Venue Pro that also featured a slide-out hardware keyboard. The keypad offers tactile feedback. Apart from that, it can also register touch gestures such as swipe up and down for scrolling.

The BlackBerry Priv has an 18-megapixel camera backed by Schneider-Kreuznach optics. It has dual-LED flash for low-light photography. It is capable of recording 1080p videos at 60 fps. For 2160p, you will have to settle for 30fps. There is a 2-megapixel front camera with 720 quality.

The Priv is one of the first BlackBerry phones not to run its proprietary OS. As mentioned earlier, it ships with the Android OS v5.1.1 (Lollipop). The Canadian brand claims that the focus is still on the security. The Blackberry Hub brings together all the contents and notifications from various sources.

The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm’s MSM8992 Snapdragon 808 chipset. This hexa-core processor comprises of a dual-core Cortex-A57 clocked at 1.8 GHz and a quad-core Cortex-A53 clocked at 1.44 GHz. The graphic intensive apps are dealt by the Adreno 418 GPU. The handset has 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal memory expandable via a microSD (up to 200 GB).

According to the company, the phone’s 3,410 mAh non-removable battery lasts for 22.5 hours. It is said to have a talk-time of 23.9 hours and a stand-by time of up to 17.6 days. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v4.1, A2DP, EDR, LE, GPS with A-GPS and a microUSB v2.0 (SlimPort 4K).