It’s been a while since we actually wrote anything about BlackBerry, but the Canadian phone maker has today announced a brand new smartphone. Called the BlackBerry Classic, it promises to deliver a no-nonsense smartphone to meet the needs of “productive people”.
After numerous attempts to change it with the Passport and Storm, the BlackBerry Classic sees the return of the ‘traditional’ BlackBerry look – where it features the cramped screen, the QWERTY keyboard, the BlackBerry trackpad and the physical navigation keys.
“By bringing back the trusted functionalities, incorporating our latest operating system and building a speedier browser, our users can feel confident they are using the best communications tool out there,” BlackBerry’s CEO and Executive Chairman John Chen said.
Hardware specs include a 3.5-inch touchscreen display, 2GB of RAM, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor, and 16GB of storage with a microSD card slot. There is also an 8-megapixel camera at the rear, a 2-megapixel camera at the front for video conferencing, and NFC support.
Software-wise, the Classic features BlackBerry OS 10.3.1 and includes BlackBerry’s Siri competitor BlackBerry Assistant. Assistant lets you use voice commands to tell the phone to manage work and personal email, calendar and other native BlackBerry 10 applications. The OS will also include two app stores – BlackBerry World and Amazon AppStore – as the OS can emulate Android applications.
The phone is available now in the United States. BlackBerry has confirmed the device will be coming in Australia in early 2015 through Telstra.
