New details and rumours are emerging for BlackBerry’s next smartphone, codenamed Venice, one that is believed to feature a full Android operating system as well as a slider keyboard.
Now, CrackBerry says it has gotten its hands on renders of the device. While no slide-out keyboard is visible, the images show off a blend of BlackBerry and Android functions and also offer a glimpse into its hardware.
Since the phone maker has already announced its cross-platform strategy, it comes as no surprise to see BlackBerry Hub running on the device. The image here seems to depict swipe gestures similar to Mailbox by Dropbox. It also looks to be inspired by material design with a prominent circular compose button at the bottom of the screen.
The device’s camera, long rumoured to have an 18MP sensor is shown here. Phone Arena reported in June that BlackBerry Venice will also come with a 5.4-inch, 1440 x 2560 resolution curved screen similar to the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Meanwhile, it would be powered by a 64-bit Snapdragon 808 SoC processor, a hexa-core 1.8GHz CPU and an Adreno 418 GPU, 3GB of RAM. The front-facing camera will have 5MP.
Lastly, for a feature that sits squarely in the Android camp, we see the Chromecast streaming controls being demoed on the BlackBerry. This will be the first time that feature will be made available on a BlackBerry, and looks to emulate the functionality currently found on Android phones.
What do you think? Obviously these images are relegated to the “rumour” category; perhaps Vienna looks to surprise when it’s released supposedly in November. For BlackBerry diehards, the phone is reportedly also coming with a BB10 OS option.
For Android users, is a keyboard and the promise of enterprise-level security enough to sway you to a BlackBerry device? Let us know in the comments below.
