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This might be our first look at BlackBerry’s Android smartphone (Update)

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Update: As I thought, this isn’t the slider. It’s just a Passport.

Evan Blass just can’t stop. Earlier today he came out on Twitter to say that BlackBerry’s Android-powered “Venice” smartphone is on its way to AT&T, and now he has shared an image of what looks to be some kind of BlackBerry device running Google’s mobile operating system.

It’s not clear exactly which device we’re looking at above, but it’s definitely odd. As you can see, it features a physical keyboard along the bottom, but above that is what looks to be an on-screen keyboard as well. Since the image is cut off, we can’t really see what this device actually looks like. Either way, though, it’s hard to tell how this device could be the same as the aforementioned slider phone coming from the Canadian firm.

It’s possible that this is just an early render, though, and that the top part where you can see the Android interface elements actually slides down over the keys. It would definitely be helpful if Evan could leak the top part of the image so that we could get the full picture. Maybe it’s just me, but this device looks to be similar in form factor to the BlackBerry Passport—not exactly a slider.

BlackBerry Passport -- AT&T 2015-07-02 20-05-12

BlackBerry Passport

We’ve been hearing about an Android phone to come from BlackBerry for quite a while now, with Reuters reporting early last month that the flailing smartphone maker has plans to release a slider phone powered by Android sometime later this year.

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Avatar for Stephen Hall Stephen Hall

Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. If you want to get in touch, follow me on Twitter. Or, email at stephen (at) 9to5mac (dot) com, or an encrypted email at hallstephenj (at) protonmail (dot) com.