The Renaissance Of Blackberry On The Horizon
If there’s any one mistake that Blackberry seems to be making over and over and over, it’s definitely the fact that it prices its units far up on the “flagship model†range. This means that for those who want to buy a new, secure, Android-powered Blackberry, they’ll have to pay almost a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge’s price. So why shouldn’t they just go grab a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, instead? What’s stopping them from getting an iPhone 6S for only $200 more? What is the point of getting an Android-powered Blackberry?
To answer the last question on that rhetorical question series, the point of getting an Android-powered Blackberry could be any of these reasons:
-Nostalgia. Yes, you loved your Blackberry, and you do want it back on the market.
-Support for a dying company. No, you don’t want Blackberry to go the way of the dodo, so yes, you should go ahead and buy one.
-Because they just might bring the QWERTY back.
Wisecracks and nostalgia aside though, Ubergizmo just reported two key things:
-The Blackberry PRIV just sold 700,000 units this quarter.
-The Blackberry “Vienna†is currently in the works, and Ubergizmo showed photos of the unit.
The Blackberry PRIV sold 700k units, next Blackberry is going to be cheaper: https://www.ubergizmo.com/2015/12/next-blackberry-android-smartphone-will-be-cheaper/
The Blackberry Vienna: https://www.ubergizmo.com/2015/11/alleged-android-powered-blackberry-vienna-photos-leaked/
Given that the Blackberry PRIV’s sales look encouraging, it’s safe to do a little dance for Blackberry and be hopeful that they just might go back to relevance. On the other hand, we already know what the other tech pundits will say about the Blackberry Vienna: The keypad is just too cramped. That was Blackberry’s mistake on the Passport, so why did it has to do this again? Didn’t the company hear enough from the pundits?
In any case, though, this looks like an aggressive claw back to the forefront of the mobile market, with Blackberry admitting that it’s set to release more models in the coming years, possibly just months. It would be exciting to see phones with keypads as comfortable as, say, the Bold line, or the Curve line. Who cares if it’s powered by Android? The better to have the best of both worlds.