BlackBerry

After leaking a few times over the past several weeks, BlackBerry has made the DTEK60 official today as its most powerful Android device so far and its first with a fingerprint sensor.

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BlackBerry recently announced that it wouldn’t be developing its own hardware, but that isn’t going to stop the company from partnering with other OEMs to release new devices. Earlier this year the company worked with TCL to create the DTEK50, and now it’s doing it again with the DTEK60.

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BlackBerry’s move from its own smartphone platform to Android doesn’t seem to have done it much good. A few months after the Android-powered Priv suffered from both slow sales and high return rates, the company has announced that it is quitting the hardware business altogether.

Re/code reports that the company made the announcement as it recorded a net loss of $372M …

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We live in an era of information overload, there’s no doubt about that, and with all the apps and services we use constantly asking for our attention it has become easier than ever to feel as if we were drowning in way too many communication services.

BlackBerry has been working on a solution to this problem for Android users, which it is officially announcing today…

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Following up on leaks and rumors regarding the BlackBerry “Neon”, BlackBerry has today officially announced its latest smartphone, the DTEK50. As the company’s second Android smartphone, this device brings a new design with a smaller form factor and no physical keyboard…

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We’ve known for quite some time that BlackBerry has been working hard to develop new Android smartphones following the release of the PRIV last year, however until now we haven’t seen too much regarding these devices. Overnight a page went live on BlackBerry’s website, though, which since been taken down, showing off new images of the upcoming BlackBerry Neon (DTEK50) as well as the full specifications list (via Crackberry).

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At the beginning of the month, reports described slow BlackBerry PRIV sales and high return rates. Despite this and a potential exit from the hardware business, VentureBeat has details on three new Android-powered devices in the works. These rumors are similar to ones from last year and involve a pair of touchscreen devices and one with a full keyboard.

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Earlier this week news surfaced that AT&T sales of the BlackBerry Priv are worse than expected, and now T-Mobile has stopped selling the Android device on its site. The device is out-of-stock online, but those who are still interested may be able to find them in local carrier stores.

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Blackberry announced its first Android powered smartphone late last year and the phone launched on AT&T shortly thereafter. Other carriers followed, and things looked bright for the Candian firm. There’s no doubt here that the Priv is a solid device, but with a high price tag and features that not everyone actually cares about, it was always going to be a tough sell.

The company estimated that it would push about 850,000 units in Q4 of 2015, but it only sold about 600,000 units in total in that time. It’s tough to say exactly why things fell below expectations, but one anonymous executive from AT&T had a little bit of insight on the topic (via CNET)…

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After lackluster PRIV sales last quarter and a subsequent price cut, BlackBerry will be launching two mid-range devices later this year. Speaking to The National, CEO John Chen said their first device running Android “was too high-end a product” even for the enterprise market.

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When the original iPhone was announced 9 years ago, the smartphone market landscape was very different. One of the pre-iPhone champions, of course, was BlackBerry. Its physical QWERTY-equipped devices were fast, efficient and productive. Next to the iPhone, they looked old within a few weeks of Apple’s first smartphone launch.

After that came Android, and with it, the slow-demise of the once-giants of the mobile world. The Canadian company had to try and reinvent itself after years of trying to bring its own platform back to life.

As iPhone went from strength to strength, BlackBerry has had to start again with its very first Android handset. But just how does the company’s first Google-powered phone compare with what many regard to be the best phablet around?

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More often than not, when a manufacturer decides to mess with software, adding its own ‘valuable’ take on what we should have on our phones, it ends up being a laggy mess of unused features. Whether its LG with its inefficient launcher, or Samsung with its TouchWiz, no Android OEM gets it right. With BlackBerry’s PRIV, although there are undoubtedly a couple of things I’d change, most of the custom software is very useful and is — dare I say it — better than stock Android…

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I’ve almost lost count of the number of Android phones I’ve used over the past few years. Some are more memorable than others, but the one that really sticks in my mind is the original. The very first Android phone, the HTC-made T-Mobile G1.

There was something very unusual about it. It didn’t look like the Windows Mobile PDA-phone crossovers, it was nothing like a BlackBerry or an iPhone. It was that unique quirky factor that gave it its edge. Having a touchscreen which flicked out to reveal a full QWERTY keypad was something we’d only really seen on the Sidekick series.

Fast forward nearly 8 years later, and virtually every Android phone looks like every other smartphone. Of all the devices released over the past 12 months, I’d hazard a guess that 99.9% of them were the standard rectangle, touchscreen and no-keyboard affairs. Some might have curved dual-screen designs, but they’re still all-screen. Until the PRIV, we haven’t seen anything remotely decent with a physical QWERTY keyboard since the days of the G2…

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BlackBerry chief John Chen recently stated that his company is only going to make Android smartphones this year. And if a report from Economic Times is anything to go by, they company might only make Android phones for the foreseeable future, signaling the end of the 3 year-old BB10 platform…

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John Chen has to be one of the most likable CEOs in the business. His honest-talking and humble character has won him many fans in the tech industry. What’s more, BlackBerry fans across the globe will credit him for saving the company at a point when it looked doomed. Or, at the very least, stopped it from going extinct. Sadly however, his latest comments might not go down so well with some of the BlackBerry-faithful…

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