BlackBerry’s first Android-powered smartphone, BlackBerry Priv, is still far away from its launch, but the smartphone has already been spotted in a detailed hands-on post. Details of the pre-production unit was posted by derStandard.at, and states that although the specs seem impressive, its real-time usage is intermittent.
Specifications of the BB Priv unit used in the post are quite similar to what was reported in earlier rumours. It sports a 5.4-inch curved display with 2K resolution, with a pixel density of 544ppi. Under the hood, the smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset, coupled with 3GB of RAM. The phone has an 18MP rear camera with dual-tone flash, and a 5MP front camera. It comes with 32GB of built-in storage, out of which 22GB is usable. The phone also has a microSD card slot, for expanding the storage.
The hands-on post mentions that the smartphone is quite big to hold, and is not good for one-handed use. It also lacks physical navigation keys. The back panel comprises of textured material, which might include Kevlar fibre. The gap of the slider hinge, which rolls out the physical keyboard, has been seen to be dirt- and dust-prone. The keys on the physical keyboard are small in size, and it might take some time to get accustomed to typing on them. As for the curves on the display, they are not as well-defined as on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ and other devices in Samsung's Edge series. The phone scored around 46000 in the AnTuTu benchmark test performed by the derStandard team, but they have mentioned occurance of some lags while using it for real. However, it was a pre-production unit, and a few changes may happen with the device that will finally be launched.
On the software front, the BB Priv mostly employs stock Android UI. derStandard's post mentions that there is an additional naviagtion button, which shows the selection menu for the on-screen keyboard. The phone also lets you import data from devices running iOS, Android or BlackBerry OS 5.0 and higher. It comes pre-loaded with Google apps, and various BlackBerry apps like BBM, and BlackBerry's privacy solution for Android, Safe Guard. The privacy app examines the phone's security settings, and gives a score to gauge the security level. The post also stated that the Priv's battery fell from 100 to 85 percent, after heavy usage spanning 2.5 hours. The brightness level of the display was set to 75% during this. Although inconclusive, the BlackBerry Priv can be expected to last for about 1.5 days on average daily usage.
The BlackBerry Priv has been leaked numerous times earlier, in photos and video demonstrations. The smartphone was confirmed by BlackBerry for the first time, last month. The confirmation was made by BlackBerry CEO John Chen as part of company’s Q2 earning report. He had stated that the Priv will be released later in 2015 through both online and offline stores. Alongside, he also stated BlackBerry's commitment to its own BB OS 10, despite fitting the Priv with Android OS. The company may be relying on BlackBerry Priv’s success for deciding the future of its smartphone business. BlackBerry's present aim is to sell 5 million smartphones every year. Last week, Chen told The Verge at the Code Mobile conference that if targets are not met, BlackBerry may exit the smartphone business.