BlackBerry 2018 Flagship Spotted In Benchmarks - Is This The BlackBerry KEYtwo?

Paul Briden 22/11/2017 - 1:46pm

BlackBerry is prepping another flagship Android phone for next year

A new BlackBerry flagship appears to be in-development after rocking up in a benchmarking database entry.

The handset, which is thought to be a successor model to the BlackBerry KEYone flagship, appeared in Geekbench test results listed as the QUALCOMM BBF100-1. To put that in some kind of context, the BlackBerry KEYone was the BBB100-X and the BlackBerry Motion was the BBD-100-X.

At this stage in the year we can be sure that whatever this device in testing is, it will be being prepped for a launch inside 2018, meaning it could be next year's flagship BlackBerry phone.

The device appears to be flagship-grade, at least by BlackBerry's current standards, as it has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 octa-core processor - the current flagship BlackBerry KEYone uses a Qualcomm MSM8953 Snapdragon 625, so this would be an upgrade.

Of course both those chips are lower-tier than the current Snapdragon 835 typically seen in other flagship Android phones, but that's a deliberate choice on BlackBerry's part, as the company is more interested in optimising its implementation of near-stock Android around efficient and more battery friendly chips.

The unnamed device also has 6GB of RAM, but no other details have been revealed by the benchmark. Earlier reports indicate the handset might feature a 1620x1080 pixel touch display and will almost certainly have a physical QWERTY keyboard.

by pbriden via Featured Articles