BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has been making news with its new devices, and the most awaited of the new devices to be launched BlackBerry Classic will be released before the year ends. BlackBerry at the San Francisco event on Thursday announced that the pre-orders for the new device Classic had started.
As per the latest news on the device, the phone with QWERTY keypad will be offered at an off-contract price of $449. It is expected that by mid-December the company will start shipping the device.
BlackBerry Passport v/s Classic
While both Passport and Classic run on the BlackBerry 10 operating system, the devices differ from each other in a way that Classic comes with a more conventional size and shape. Classic has more traditional physical keys that include separate keys for receiving and disconnecting calls along with a throwback BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) key.
The device will run on a Qualcomm S4 Plus chip, sports a 3.5-inch 720 x 720 touchscreen, an 8MP camera on the rear and a decent inbuilt storage of 16GB. A new BlackBerry service called Blend – which is a secure remote desktop application for the phone – will also come with the Classic. The service is very handy and is very much liked by those, who have used it, and thus could help further drive the sales of the device. The service allows the users to send texts and BBMs from their desktop computer, which is an amazing feature. Classic device also has the ability of running Android apps from the Amazon App store just like the Passport.
Limited supply expected
The supply of the device will be restricted by BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) to the number of units it expects to sell as evident from the blog post that says the device will be available in limited quantities. The device was discussed by the new CEO John Chen early this year in February, but the device was not included in the product road map leaked earlier as a product to be launched in 2014.
The device is being targeted at the CTOs, who have security on top of their minds all the time, and they generally buy such devices with high security in bulk quantities and give to their employees for official tasks. No information regarding the carrier support is available as yet.
