While things are happening in the background to change BlackBerry’s future it’s presumably business as usual for the company’s engineers as word has leaked of a new budget Qwerty model in development, dubbed the BlackBerry Kopi.
The word comes via BGR’s unnamed “close source” and includes a picture of the device. Kopi is just a codename at present and if/when the handset reaches market it will almost certainly have a different moniker. The source also revealed that BlackBerry plans to put the Kopi out at a lower price point than the existing mid-range Qwerty BlackBerry Q5 model.
The design is certainly more utilitarian and not as refined, with a rather clunky looking keyboard and a large grey surround on the outer edge of the device. According to BGR the Kopi’s processor will be faster than the Q5’s dual-core Qualcomm setup, though no specific processor model has been mentioned. Meanwhile the battery will be removable and the handset won’t have 4G LTE support.
There aren’t any further spec details at present and in particular we’re wondering about that display. It looks to be a similar size to the BlackBerry Q10 and BlackBerry Q5, which were both 3.1-inches with 720x720 pixel resolutions. Something a bit lower-grade seems likely though to keep costs down. A screenshot does show the operating system as BlackBerry 10.2.1, so expect full touch functionality for those gesture controls.
Will this device actually make it to market with things changing at BlackBerry though? That remains to be seen. We’ll have more news on this as we hear it.
by pbriden via Featured Articles
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