Washington: BlackBerry has launched a distinctive handset featuring a square screen and a keyboard that offers both physical keys and touch-enabled gesture controls.
The BlackBerry Passport has a square touchscreen display and a physical QWERTY keyboard, a major departure from the glass rectangle forms most smartphones take, and the ailing smartphone firm is hoping the odd-looking handset will help it compete against Apple and Android.
“The BlackBerry Passport was created to drive productivity and to break through the sea of rectangular-screen, all-touch devices,” said John Chen, BlackBerry’s CEO, in a statement.
The new smartphone went on sale in the US on Wednesday at ShopBlackBerry.com for $599 unlocked. Several US carriers, including AT&T, are expected to sell the device later this year for about $250 on a two-year contract, BlackBerry officials said.
A physical keyboard has long been a key element of the BlackBerry design, although the company temporarily ditched it for the Z10. The company said the Passport’s keyboard is four times as accurate as its own virtual keyboards, with users making 74% fewer errors on it. The keyboard is also touch sensitive, letting you swipe or flick to move the cursor, scroll through webpages and more.
The Passport has a 4.5in square screen with a 1,440 x 1,440 resolution (453ppi). It runs a quad-core 2.2GHz processor, has 3GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear camera and 32GB of built-in storage.
BlackBerry is also promising 30 hours of “mixed use” between charges via the 3,450mAh battery – the Nexus 5, for comparison, has a 2,300mAh battery.
BlackBerry said the Passport was designed to fit in a pocket and to survive that experience – something Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus is having difficulty with, as users report the phablet is bending when kept in pockets.
BlackBerry also said the Passport is designed to be durable, with the display reinforced with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and the body toughened with stainless steel.
However, it remains to be seen if the BlackBerry Passport’s odd shape and inclusion of a keyboard is enough to overcome the company’s recent struggles or competition Apple, which is hoping to push iPhones to corporates via a recent deal with IBM.