In about a week’s time, at CES 2017, we’re going to see next generation BlackBerry-branded smartphones, made by BlackBerry in collaboration with its new hardware partner, TCL. One of these handsets is probably the BlackBerry Mercury, which is shaping up to be an unusual smartphone for this day and age.
According to previous reports, the BlackBerry Mercury should feature a full QWERTY keyboard, in addition to a touchscreen display of around 4.5 inches.
As you can see above, it appears that the BlackBerry Mercury doesn’t have on-screen buttons, which likely means it comes with hardware navigation keys. Leaked images allegedly revealing the BlackBerry Mercury do indeed show hardware navigation buttons just below the phone’s display, above the QWERTY keyboard.
Possibly powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, the Mercury should further feature 3 GB of RAM, a fingerprint scanner embedded into the space bar, 32 GB of internal memory, and a (hopefully long-lasting) 3400 mAh battery.
It’s said that the BlackBerry Mercury will be released in the US via Verizon, though we’re also expecting the phone to be sold unlocked – just like all other Android-based BlackBerries launched until now. Min you, “Mercury” could be just a codename, so the device may have a different name once it hits shelves.
source: Roland Quandt (Twitter)
