We anticipated it back in June, and some thought it was a joke, but evidently nobody is laughing now: a Vietnamese site published exclusive images of the BlackBerry Venice, the company's first smartphone to use Android as its operating system. A slider design, a physical keyboard, a microSD slot and an HD camera are some of the details we can extract from the images...
A chronicle of an announced move
I think we could call it "a chronicle of an announced move". Several statistics agencies place BlackBerry's market share below 0.5 percent. Even with a number six times larger, Microsoft recognized its failure after buying Nokia, declared $7.6 billion in losses, and laid off almost eight thousand people. With such a reference, what can we expect from BlackBerry besides a last move? Well, it all depends on how powerful that last move is. For months, the specialized press has heard rumors about a BlackBerry with Android preinstalled. In theory, the last thing the market needs is another Android smartphone, so it will be critical for BlackBerry to establish differences from the start.
The BlackBerry Venice, in detail
So we arrive at the BlackBerry Venice. Thanks to the images published by the Vietnamese portal tinhte.vn, today we have a much more solid idea of how the first commercial BlackBerry Android will look. The general specifications of the Venice (unconfirmed) emerged last June: a curved 5.4-inch screen, a hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC at 1.8 GHz, 3 GB of RAM, 18 and 5 megapixel cameras, a physical QWERTY keyboard with a slider design, a microSD slot, and an integrated battery. Judging by the images, I think the cameras, the keyboard, the screen, the microSD slot and the battery are in order. A curious detail is that the captures were made on what appears to be an airplane. While we had already seen Venice prototypes with BB10, everything indicates that we are facing a classic leak.
What comes next?
Ladies and gentlemen, the first BlackBerry with Android is a fact. It wouldn't be bad if the company finally confirmed the launch of the device, its availability and other minor details, but something tells me we'll have to wait a little longer. Several sites point to November as the month of its debut, trying to take advantage of the Black Friday movement, although there is no precise data on which version it will be. We'll be watching.
