With sales of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) quite low since the last few years, the company had to come up with something to count in a smartphone market monopolized by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iOS and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Android.
The BlackBerry Venice is designed to have a significant impact on the smartphone market dynamics. It is claimed to be the first ever BlackBerry device running the Android operating system. There has been a host of leaks and renders regarding this hyped device.
Earlier rumors said it would launch on AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T). However there has been recent speculation that it would be on T-Mobile US Inc (NYSE:TMUS). The BlackBerry Venice is rumored to launch this November and would be a pretty high-end hardware. A cool feature is a sliding physical keyboard along with a QWERTY keypad. Leaked renders suggest that the device will have a 5.5 inch Quad HD (2560 X 1440) display with curved edges on both sides.
It is speculated that the device will have two variants – one running Android while the other will be running BB Operating System. It is supposed to have an 18 megapixel primary rear oriented camera along with phase detection auto-focus. The front oriented selfie-cam is supposed to have a 5 megapixel sensor. Leaked specs also tell that Venice will have 3GB of RAM.
A certain render of the smartphone has Android icons on the home screen also featuring the Google Play Store icon. The device is rumored to have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset operating under the hood. The SOC has a hexa-core CPU as well as a Adreno 418 GPU.
A certain leaked render shows a speaker grille positioned below the device’s display. It also reveals BlackBerry’s signature button trio on the right as well as a headphone jack placed on its bottom edge.
Finally Venice offers support for Chromecast. While BlackBerry 10 doesn’t provide Chromecast support, Android does. All eyes are on the upcoming launch of BlackBerry’s Venice later this year.
Sources: androidheadlines, phonearena
