BlackBerry Priv
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| Codename | Venice |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | BlackBerry Limited |
| First released | November 6, 2015 |
| Successor | KEYone |
| Type | Smartphone |
| Form factor | Slide |
| Dimensions |
H 147 mm (5.8 in) H 184 mm (7.2 in) (opened) W 77.2 mm (3.04 in) D 9.4 mm (0.37 in) |
| Weight | 192 g (6.77 oz) |
| Operating system |
Android Original: Android 5.1.1 "Lollipop" Current: Android 6.0.1 "Marshmallow" |
| System on chip | Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 |
| CPU |
Dual-core 1.82 GHz Cortex A57 Quad-core 1.44 GHz Cortex A53 |
| GPU | Adreno 418 |
| Memory | 3 GB |
| Storage | 32 GB |
| Removable storage | Up to 2 TB microSDXC |
| Battery | 3410 mAh Li-Po non-removable battery Qi wireless charging (AT&T STV100-1) |
| Data inputs | Multi-touch touchscreen, physical keyboard with touchpad |
| Display | |
| Rear camera | 18 megapixels, 2160p video capture, phase detection autofocus, OIS |
| Front camera | 2 megapixels, 720p video capture |
| Connectivity | |
| Website | blackberry |
The BlackBerry Priv is a slider smartphone developed by BlackBerry Limited. Following a series of leaks, it was officially announced by BlackBerry CEO John Chen on September 25, 2015, with pre-orders opening on October 23, 2015 for a release on November 6, 2015.
The Priv is the first BlackBerry-branded smartphone that does not run the company's proprietary BlackBerry OS or BlackBerry 10 (BB10) platforms. It instead uses Android, customized with features inspired by those on BlackBerry phones, and security enhancements. With its use of Android—one of two smartphone platforms that significantly impacted BlackBerry's early dominance in the smartphone industry—the company sought to leverage access to the larger ecosystem of software available through the Google Play Store (as opposed to BlackBerry 10 devices, which were limited to native BB10 apps from BlackBerry World and Android apps from the third-party Amazon Appstore running in a compatibility subsystem), in combination with a slide-out physical keyboard and privacy-focused features.
The BlackBerry Priv received mixed reviews. Critics praised the Priv's user experience for incorporating BlackBerry's traditional, productivity-oriented features on top of the standard Android experience, including a notifications feed and custom e-mail client. Some critics felt that the device's physical keyboard did not perform as well as those on previous BlackBerry devices, and that the Priv's performance was not up to par with other devices using the same system-on-chip. The Priv was also criticized for being more expensive than similarly-equipped devices in its class.
While BlackBerry was dominant in the early smartphone market, partially due to a large market share within the enterprise and governmental markets, the company had struggled in recent years due to the dominance of Apple Inc. and its iPhone line, and Android devices—primarily by Samsung Electronics. By June 2015, the company's market share in the U.S. consumer market had fallen to 1.2%. Facing a struggling ecosystem for native, third-party software on BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry added a compatibility layer for Android software to the OS, and allowed developers to repackage their Android apps for distribution on BlackBerry World. Later versions added the ability for users to manually install Android app packages. Beginning with the BlackBerry Passport, Amazon Appstore was bundled with BlackBerry 10 to provide an additional source of third-party Android software. BlackBerry CEO John S. Chen hoped that Amazon's own smartphone, the Fire Phone, would bolster the adoption of the Amazon store and attract more major developers to it, and in turn, BlackBerry's ecosystem. However, the Fire Phone was a commercial failure, which led to BlackBerry's decision to develop an Android phone of its own.
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