Blackberry "Venice" Android slider phone rumors grow louder

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in mobile on (#HVW4)
story imageFamed phone leaker @evleaks is at it again, this time with a few more shots of BlackBerry's forthcoming Venice handset. Venice is a slider phone that sports a large touchscreen display and runs Android instead of Blackberry's proprietary BB10 operating system. It slides up to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode, giving owners of the device the best of both worlds, or so BlackBerry hopes. The Canadian outfit has been struggling for the past several years, and is hoping Venice will change that. The company built a reputation that was based in part on excellent hardware keyboards, and though the mobile market has moved to touchscreens, there are still many users who prefer the feel of a physical plank. Venice will give users a choice between the two input methods. Venice has been "confirmed" to launch in November on all four national U.S. wireless carriers -- Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint.

As one who loves BlackBerry hardware but not the software, I'm excited about the potential of a proper QWERTY phone with Android apps. Because these are leaks, the details are still up in the air. Nonetheless, it's looking more and more likely that BlackBerry will be launching an Android phone sometime this year. It's also becoming increasingly clear that the device will probably be a slider, and that it will possibly run Google Play services.

Re: Hardware keyboards, security, customer support (Score: 1)

by elf@pipedot.org on 2015-08-21 08:01 (#J18X)

These things are all good for business customers but even here times are changing. People no longer want 2 phones at work, they want to bring their own phone and have access to work data as well as their personal data on a single device. The physical keyboard on a mobile phone is never going to be big (in my opinion) because the amount of keys you need for typing is far greater than for using a phone as a phone and this large requirement for keys means the keys will actually be very small and that doesn't suit a lot of people.
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