BlackBerry soon confirms to announce Priv smartphone with Android

Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry has confirmed that it will announce an Android slider called Priv. The company did this when it presented its quarterly figures. It is the first time that BlackBerry confirms that it will release an Android device.

The announcement that the Priv is coming does not mean that BlackBerry will stop with its own operating system. It has also announced that it plans to release BlackBerry OS 10.3.3 in March 2016 with several privacy-focused features.

The Priv will be released later this year and is an Android device with a slider mechanism, but the manufacturer did not disclose more about the device. Many details about the smartphone have already appeared online and the device has already been shown in a photo and in a video. It is a slider with a 5.4″ screen curved at the edges. The device is rumored to have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808-soc and an 18-megapixel camera. Users can slide a physical keyboard out from under the screen. BlackBerry uses during the development reportedly codenamed Venice.

The quarterly figures also showed that BlackBerry earned more from services than from phones for the first time. It delivered 800,000 phones, compared to 2.4 million a year ago. The company posted revenues of around $490 million against a $66 million loss and hopes to be profitable again in six months.