Update (7/3): Soon after the information surfaced about the AT&T-bound BlackBerry Venice, @evleaks posted yet another piece of insightful information on Twitter, this time containing a leaked render of the supposed device.
What’s most notable from the render is that the BlackBerry Venice looks to be running a full build of Android, not a fork of the OS like we’ve seen with Amazon’s Fire Phone. As you can see, there are also Google Apps installed on the device, meaning users will have access to everything in the Google Play Store.
On the hardware front, the Venice is shown sporting a single front-facing speaker below the screen, which many users will likely appreciate. Down below, we have a Micro USB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack – nothing too out of the ordinary. But what isn’t shown off in the render is the slide-out keyboard that we’ve heard so much about over the past few weeks. The keyboard will likely be one of the Venice’s biggest selling points among consumers, so hopefully another render will show up sporting a glimpse of it sometime soon.
What do you think of the new render? If this turns out to be the Venice after all, would you be on board? Let us know what you think!
Original post (7/2): Reports have been surfacing for some time about a rumored Android-powered handset made by BlackBerry, and those rumors began to really pick up steam just a few weeks ago. This mystery handset will supposedly come with a slide-out keyboard and will be launched sometime this fall, though not many other details have been revealed quite yet. With that said, we might have just received a few more tidbits of information, courtesy of retired leaker, @evleaks.
AT&T. We’re not sure if this means the device will be an AT&T-exclusive or not, just that the carrier is planning to sell the device.
Read more: 4 ways BlackBerry can be unique on Android
While BlackBerry still has yet to confirm the existence of the Android device, John Chen, the company’s CEO, explained in an interview that the company is not opposed to building an Android device, as long as it’s secure.
It’s certainly been a long time since we’ve seen a notable Android handset come with a full QWERTY keyboard, so we wouldn’t be surprised if BlackBerry’s new slider becomes a hit among smartphone users, if and when it launches. For now, all of these are just rumors, so we’ll need to wait until we hear more from the company to know anything for sure.
What do you think? Would you be interested in an Android-powered slider built by BlackBerry? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments below.