Blackberry is said to release its last smart phone with the iconic QWERTY style keyboard named "Blackberry Mercury." The expected release date is in the first quarter of 2017, according to sources. This would be the third model Blackberry is set to release within less than a year's timeframe.
According to Bloomberg Canada, Blackberry has officially stopped manufacturing its own smartphones; instead, it has directed its resources towards development of security-packed software. The last two models, DTEK50 (Neon) and DTEK60 (Argon), were not directly manufactured by Blackberry but through TCL, Alcatel's parent company and were only licensed under Blackberry . In an interview with Emily Chang from Bloomberg TV, John Chen, the CEO of Blackberry was quoted saying "We have one keyboard phone I promised people. It's coming." This statement is what gave hope to Blackberry loyals around the world so they can experience the classic BB QWERTY pad on a smartphone for the last time.
Recently, a photo on Weibo was discovered showing a smartphone with a keypad sporting features that the upcoming Blackberry Mercury is said to have. Some of the likely features for the Blackberry Mercury includes a 4.5-inch screen with 1920x1080 screen resolution. The expected processor is Snapdragon 625 with an Android 7.0 Nougat OS. A 4GB RAM, same with DTEK60, and 32GB of storage that can be expanded with a micro SD up to 1 TB wouldn't hurt either.
The Blackberry Mercury would allegedly be sporting an 18MP back Camera and an 8 MP selfie camera. A 3400 mAh battery would work pretty well with the mentioned processor giving the user more or less 36 hours of usage per charge depending on the apps and settings used. The key feature expected would be the Blackberry Trademark QWERTY pad with fingerprint scanner on the space bar. The latest Blackberry smartphone would most likely be on the $400 to $500 price range since a lot of consumers were skeptical to buy the Blackberry Priv which was around $700.
