BlackBerry Priv: Price, specs and all that you need to know

The ten important things that you would like to know about Blackberry's first ever Android Priv.

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Blackberry announced officially on Friday that Priv can be bought in the US and Canada stores from Friday onwards. Here are the few things that you would like to get to know about Blackberry Priv, which is likely to decide the future action of the company in the phones business:

1) Advanced privacy controls: The DTEK by BlackBerry app for Android monitors and reports on application access to the microphone, camera, location and personal information, enabling users to be confident that their personal data is being kept private. Users can know at a glance when their privacy could be at risk so they can take action to improve it.

2) Secure hardware: BlackBerry’s hardware root of trust, a unique manufacturing process, injects cryptographic keys into the device hardware, providing a secure foundation for the entire platform.

Priv is a new standard for the slider form: As part of BlackBerry’s cross-platform strategy to provide a greater choice of secure solutions to its customers, users will see a seamless merging of key BlackBerry 10 productivity features like the BlackBerry Hub and BlackBerry Calendar into PRIV.

Full Android App and ecosystem experience: PRIV brings incredible new features to the Android platform and gives users full access to over one million applications: whether it’s Instagram, Spotify, Uber or BBM, you’ll find it on Google Play Store. 

Best of Both Keyboards: Offers the freedom to choose between a virtual keyboard or a physical keyboard for speed and accuracy.

3) Tough and Beautiful Screen: A stunning 5.4-inch immersive dual-curve OLED display offers plenty of room to work or play with rich colors, deep black levels and less power consumption. 

At a resolution of 2560x1440, it sports an incredible pixel density of 540 PPI – 4x the amount of pixels of a standard HDTV. 

Along the screen’s curved edge is the Productivity Tab that provides an “at a glance” view of the most pertinent info from BlackBerry Hub, Calendar, Task, and Contacts.

4) Full-day Battery Life – PRIV has a 3410 mAh battery with enough power to work up to 22.5 straight hours of mixed usage.

5) State-of-the-Art Camera – Engineered to deliver professional looking photos with minimal effort, an 18MP camera, certified by Schneider-Kreuznach, integrates technologies commonly found in DSLR cameras.

6) Powerful Performance and Expandable Storage – PRIV is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, a premium-tier chipset designed to offer consumers a superior and compelling user experience along with peace of mind with Qualcomm SecureMSM technology and Qualcomm Snapdragon StudioAccess content protection.

7) Plus, with 32 GB of onboard storage and  support for micro SD cards up to 2TB, the new PRIV gives users the flexibility to add affordable and hot-swappable storage to download, install, capture and share as their needs evolve.

8) BlackBerry Natural Sound: PRIV comes with powerful speakers and a three-microphone system that delivers a high-quality listening experience. BlackBerry Natural Sound Technology is built in to adapt Wi-Fi and cellular call sound depending upon phone position and background noise, automatically adjusting volume so users don’t have to.

9) Android for Work: PRIV comes ready for work. Android for Work support allows for fast, simple and secure integration with the enterprise environment. Seamless integration with Google Play for Work enables easy access to IT-managed apps.

The company said that while PRIV will provide a choice in operating system to new and existing customers, the company remains committed to the BlackBerry 10 operating system, and will continue to release platform updates focused on security and privacy enhancements.

10) Availability and Pricing: PRIV is available starting Friday in AT&T retail stores in the U.S. and online, as well as through BlackBerry’s carrier partners in Canada: Bell, Rogers, SaskTel, TELUS, and WIND. PRIV orders can also be placed through ShopBlackBerry for $699USD.