The new Blackberry Classic is set to launch this month and new leaked photos show off how similar the phone will be to its predecessors.
The Blackberry Classic, once thought to be called the Q20, is the company's latest entry in its QWERTY keyboard phone lineup. It will feature a small 3.5-inch display, a Qualcomm dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, and 2 GB of RAM. While the small screen size may be laughable to the current larger-is-better phablet display trends, Blackberry prides itself on its physical keyboard focus and the return of the trackpad on the Classic. The front interface also features a row of four other physical buttons surrounding the trackpad that include Send, End, Menu, and Back.
The phone will come standard with an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front camera, a 2515 mAh battery, wireless charging support, and noise-cancelling headphones. The leaked photos of the Classic show a textured rear panel and a set of speaker cutouts on the device's base. A sleep/wake button adorns the device's top, while a MicroSD card slot sits on the left-hand side. The slot is rumored to support up to 128 GB of storage on the card.
The Foxconn-made Classic was first teased by Blackberry CEO John Chen back in February. He said that the new phone is marketed toward big business and government clients and will launch by the end of the year. This is in line with Blackberry's new shift away from the retail consumer market after sales of the QWERTY phones have tanked in recent years. But Chen and the company realize that, although their market share is small, the fans of Blackberry's QWERTY keyboard are loyal.
The company's CEO hinted that the success of the Passport helped Blackberry decide on releasing the Classic. "So, [the phone will feature] all the familiar things that people love, with some new technology updated," Chen said during a press conference earlier this year. "That will come out in November along with the server that helps companies manage devices. Not only the BlackBerry device, but every device, the iPhone and Androids and Windows and everything else. So, the new products will have a lot to do with the architecture."
No official date has been given for the Blackberry Classic's release this month, but we're anxious to see how it fares among its competition also releasing this month.
