Silent Circle Introduces New Blackphone Smartphone and Tablet

The company Silent Circle comes with a new privacy-oriented version of the Blackphone. In addition, a tablet is coming out. Both devices are accompanied by a new version of PrivatOS, an Android-based operating system.

The new Blackphone 2 should hit the market in the second half of this year and offers better performance than its predecessor. For example, an unspecified 64-bit octacore-soc is built-in, accompanied by 3GB of ram. The screen diagonal has been increased from 4.7″ to 5.5″. The resolution is 1920×1080 pixels. It is not yet known what the device will cost.

The privacy-focused company also said it would launch a tablet this year, but kept most of the details private. The technical specifications, price and exact release date are therefore still unclear. The name is well known: Silent Circle has opted for the somewhat confusing Blackphone+.

Finally, Silent Circle announced that it is releasing version 1.1 of PrivatOS, which includes built-in virtualization functionality. That feature, called Spaces, should ensure that installed applications cannot access user data. It should, among other things, make the software more suitable for business users. PrivatOS 1.1 also includes an application store that offers privacy-oriented applications and a feature to securely hold group video calls.

Silent Circle had already announced last year that it wanted to release a tablet. However, the company did not want to let go much at the time. The update to PrivatOS that runs on the Blackphone 2 and Blackphone+ has also been announced.