BlackBerry Unveils DTEK50, ‘World’s Most Secure Android Smartphone’

BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has just released its second Android smartphone dubbed DTEK50. The name is based on BlackBerry’s DTEK software for Android which will keep monitoring your phone and apps activity and will warn you if there’s any risk to your privacy.

Hailed by BlackBerry as the “most secure Android smartphone”, the DTEK50 boasts a 5.2″ scratch-resistance display, auto-focus 13 AMP camera and 2 TB microsSD card support. This smartphone however does not have a physical QWERTY keyboard just a smart keyboard though.

Running on Android, the new BlackBerry DTEK50 smartphone’s CPU is a Snapdragon 617 Octa-Core, 64 bit with 3 GB RAM and 16 GB Flash. The battery is 2610 mAh 4.4V non-removable Lithium Ion that has up to 17 hours mixed battery life.

The DTEK50 is priced on the lower end at just $299 ready for pre-order from BlackBerry-US. Seems to be a solid phone, but will it support John Chen’s goal to make BlackBerry’s hardware business profitable by the fall? that remains to be seen.

BlackBerry’s first Android-powered smartphone was the PRIV, which was a good move by Chen in the right direction given the popularity and market dominance of the Android operating system even though hardware stopped making money for BlackBerry a long time ago.

It was recently evident that John Chen was taking BlackBerry in the software business direction and the company finally, for the first time in a long time made money from its software business in the last quarter, it seems BlackBerry and Chen are not yet ready to give up the losing hardware business mainly because of many business and government clients who still have BlackBerry’s smartphones for their security value.

BlackBerry’s software business is certainly growing, making money and gaining more clients in time some of which are big clients such as the U.S. DoD, Senate and Coat Guard which chose BlackBerry software for Alert Warning System Expansion.