BlackBerry appears to be working quite fantastically when it comes to launching new Android smartphones, though the same cannot be said about selling them. The Canadian firm is known to be working on a new handset dubbed the DTEK60 following the launch of the DTEK50 and the Priv. However, we’re now hearing that it is working on even more Android hardware.
BlackBerry Mercury to run Android 7.0 Nougat?
Information about the new Android hardware surfaced on Monday. Recently BlackBerry’s fourth Android handset was spotted at Geekbench, according to PhoneArena. The handset is known internally as BlackBerry Mercury and has the model number BBB100-1.
In addition, it seems like BlackBerry’s upcoming smartphone is going to run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. If the Mercury does indeed come packed with Android Nougat, it would be the third release to run on Google’s latest mobile OS. So far, the LG V20 and Google’s Pixel phones are the only handsets to run the latest OS straight out of the box, notes IB Times.
The BlackBerry Mercury, unfortunately, is probably not going to be a high-end device. According to the Geekbench leak, the smartphone will come with an Adreno 506 GPU, 32GB of on-board storage, 3GB of RAM and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 processor.
May come with a physical keyboard
Another interesting thing about the new handset is that it could feature a physical keyboard, as the leak details that the Mercury has a 4.5-inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio and a 720p screen resolution, according to Android Headline. The benchmark does not disclose much about the Mercury, but it does reveal that the upcoming smartphone has a 2 GHz octa-core processor by Qualcomm, an 8 MP selfie shooter, an 18 MP main camera, and a 3,400 mAh battery.
The leak follows the surprise appearance of the DTEK60 on the B&H website. This smartphone, which reportedly sports a Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 chip and a 5.5-inch display, was revealed to be priced around $499.99, but the preorder page was taken down very quickly.
BlackBerry is not expected to announce the Mercury before it puts the DTEK60 goes on sale, so if you are planning to buy the Mercury, then you will probably have to wait a few more months. GSM Arena, however, expects the handset to “show up at some point in the first quarter of next year.”
On Monday, BlackBerry shares closed down 1.6% at $7.37. Year to date, the stock is down more than 21%, while in the last year, it is up almost 4%.
