BlackBerry returns to the Indian market with their first android, touch and type smartphone, the BlackBerry Priv.
The company has priced the phone exorbitantly at Rs 62,990. But we think it’s worth a shot.
With the hard-core flagship android smartphones with a plethora of processing power, BlackBerry has loaded the Priv with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor that’s backed by a 3GB RAM.
This is something that they have done right. It’s a tried and tested processor and it makes the Android Lollipop on the Priv run lag free.
With our short term usage the phone seemed to have the muscle to be a flagship smartphone. But the specs that it offers under the hood are about six months late.
BlackBerry has loaded the Priv with an 18 megapixel primary camera that can produce some sharp images. These, however, looked a bit distorted when we zoomed in to see the finer details.
The front camera is 2 megapixel which frankly was not good enough for this smartphone.
The touch and type form factor on the Priv is refreshing since most of the smartphone makers have completely forgotten the use case for a physical keyboard.
The keyboard does not have the finesse of the one that we saw on the Passport by BlackBerry but certainly is a classic example of an iconic keyboard experience.
The BlackBerry Priv sports a fantastic 5.4-inch immersive dual-curve OLED display offers plenty of room to work or play with rich colors, deep black levels and less power consumption. At a resolution of 2560x1440, it sports an incredible pixel density of 540 PPI – 4x the amount of pixels of a standard HDTV.
BlackBerry has given this phone a big 3410 mAh battery. The company claims that it will last you more than 22 hours with mixed usage. We’ll put that to test in our review.
A BlackBerry device has always been secure for your data and though the Priv is an Android phone that is prone to attacks by hackers, BlackBerry Priv comes ready for work.
Android for Work support allows for fast, simple and secure integration with the enterprise environment. The phone also offers seamless integration with Google Play for Work and enables easy access to IT-managed apps.
For keeping a check on app permissions and management, the company has its own pre-loaded app on the phone called DTEK. This app monitors and reports on application access to the microphone, camera, location and personal information, enabling users to be confident that their personal data is being kept private. Users can know at a glance when their privacy could be at risk so they can take action to improve it.
The overall build quality of the Priv is fantastic and that’s what BlackBerry’s were known for. BlackBerry has returned to India but is it too late? Only time and consumers can now decide the fate of BlackBerry’s last stand with the Priv in India.
Priced at Rs 62,990, it does not stand a chance with the likes of Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and even the Apple iPhone 6s, which recently got a price cut in India.
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