The past several years have been pretty rough for BlackBerry but the company is still with us and is still releasing new handsets to the delight of its fans everywhere. On Wednesday, BlackBerry officially took the wraps off its latest flagship device — the BlackBerry Passport.
FROM EARLIER: BlackBerry says its square phone is already stealing back iOS and Android users
As you no doubt know by now, the Passport is most notable for featuring a 4.5-inch square display with a resolution of 1,440 x 1,440 pixels that BlackBerry has boasted will give you a better look at images and videos than what you’d get on a rectangular display. BlackBerry touted the Passport’s wider display as a great way to edit documents and spreadsheets on your smartphone and it said the Passport’s display is able to show 60 characters per line.
Additionally, BlackBerry has also been touting the Passport’s “revolutionary” new touch-enabled keyboard that will be “responsive to touch, so you have more ways to control your smartphone without having to use the touchscreen.” BlackBerry claims that this physical keyboard is four times more accurate than virtual keyboards and that it will reduce your typos by 74%.
“No other device manufacturer could build a keyboard like this one,” BlackBerry said.
BlackBerry also showed off how the Passport will use BlackBerry Assistant, which it described as “the first virtual assistant that was built for work.” It said that, unlike with Google Now or Siri, the BlackBerry Assistant will be able to access secure data that’s sitting in a secure work container. BlackBerry also said that the Passport has a speaker phone that’s the loudest and clearest of any in the industry, including the highly acclaimed speakers on HTC’s One (M8) smartphone.
Another key feature that BlackBerry touted with the Passport was its battery life — with a massive 3450mAH battery, BlackBerry says the device will offer 30 hours of battery life with regular use. Other specs include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.2GHz quad-core processor and 3GB of RAM.
The BlackBerry Passport is available to order now for $599 off contract.
