Reports indicate that the final BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) smartphone may be available exclusively from Verizon Wireless. No word was available concerning the release date however. Information on BlackBerry’s retail partner originally came from Roland Quandt who has garnered a reputation as a reliable tipster on gadgets.
‘BlackBerry “Mercury” BBB100 is coming to Verizon in the US,’ tweeted Quandt.
GSM and CDMA
The model that will initially be sold by Verizon is expected to support both GSM and CDMA. If the report is indeed true, Mercury will be the second BlackBerry running on Android that Verizon will be selling. The Mercury is expected to be the last BlackBerry device to have a physical QWERTY keyboard.
The smartphone is expected to be announced at the consumer electronics show in January next year. John Chen, the chief executive officer of BlackBerry, had earlier revealed that Mercury would be the last smartphone from the Canadian tech company that would be launched before license rights to produce mobile devices under the BlackBerry brand name were transferred to TCL, a Chinese company. TCL is also said to be manufacturing the BlackBerry Mercury though the design was done by the Canadian smartphone maker itself.
Android 7.0 Nougat
While no information on pricing has been released as of yet, it is expected that the device will feature an octa-core processor specifically Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625. 32GB of internal memory and 3GB of RAM will be packed inside the device. The device will also sport a 3,400 mAh battery and a fingerprint scanner. Though BlackBerry has neither denied nor confirmed, the latest BlackBerry smartphone will run on Android 7.0 Nougat.
Despite the information of an exclusive release on Verizon being from a source who has been reliable in the past, the possibility of the BlackBerry being made available for other carriers is considerable. BlackBerry has a tradition of including config files in its operating system for other mobile carriers aside from the one they are launching with thus making it possible for users to use their phones on several networks.
In Tuesday’s trading, shares of BlackBerry Ltd fell by 0.85% to close the day at $7.08 a piece.