BlackBerry has come up with a sweet offer for Priv customers this holiday season. The Canadian firm is offering a free sync pod and a device case with the purchase of select devices including the Priv from the ShopBlackBerry website.
BlackBerry makes Priv a better deal
Apart from the Priv, a free sync pod and device case that cost up to $95 is also available with the purchase of the Classic, Leap, Passport and Passport Silver Edition. BlackBerry is also offering special discounts on the Passport and Passport Silver Edition. The former is available for $459 while the latter costs $499. The offer from the Canadian firm will run until January 5th, 2016.
The impact this offer has on BlackBerry Priv sales, and how readily the market adopts it, is something that remains to be seen. But we may not have to wait too much longer as the Canadian firm will present its third-quarter 2016 earnings results on December 18th. Though the results may not give us the full picture on the Priv sales, it will certainly suggest the response of the market towards the device.
The Priv – up to date with patches and fixes
The BlackBerry Priv is the first official Android-powered smartphone from the Canadian firm running on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor. There is also 3GB RAM to support the Snapdragon 808. The device has a high-resolution touch-screen measuring 5.4-inch, and a slide-out hardware keyboard that doubles up as a trackpad.
Speaking of the software, the Priv runs Android 5.1 Lollipop, and BlackBerry plans to release Android 6.0 Marshmallow for the handset in February 2016. BlackBerry intends to keep the Priv up to date, and released the latest security patched version of Android Lollipop even before Google released the update to its Nexus range of devices. Recently, a slew of BlackBerry application updates were released in the Google Play Store.
BlackBerry has a strong security and software foundation, but it is in the interest of users that the manufacturer patches all critical vulnerabilities. The fact that BlackBerry brought Android to their hardware and quickly released security patches into the software should encourage the established Android industry to keep their devices up to date.
In pre-market trading today, BlackBerry shares were up 1.78% at $7.99. Year to date, the stock is down almost 29% while over the last month, it is up almost 9%.
