Since BlackBerry will no longer make its own smartphones it has signed an exclusive agreement with TCL enabling the Chinese company to manufacture and sell handsets under its iconic brand. The much-rumored BlackBerry Mercury is the first TCL-made BB and the company was teasing it prior to the Consumer Electronics Show 2017. TCL has confirmed the BlackBerry Mercury today without actually confirming anything of substance.
Not much is known about the BlackBerry Mercury at this point in time aside from the fact that it features a full QWERTY keyboard which has a fingerprint sensor embedded in the space bar. The keyboard’s capacitive-touch technology which lets users scroll through things by simply swiping on the keyboard has been retained, this technology was first introduced on the BlackBerry Passport.
TCL did show off the Mercury today and also revealed that it’s going to be powered by Android Nougat with additional security and productivity optimizations. It also has a USB Type-C port and a body fashioned out of metal and rubber.
There’s a long list of things that TCL didn’t confirm today, such as what this device will be officially called, what’s the screen size and resolution, what processor is powering it, how much RAM and storage it has, how big are the batteries, what are the camera specs, and most importantly how much will the Mercury cost and when it will be released.
TCL did say that it’s going to provide more information about the BlackBerry Mercury at the Mobile World Congress 2017 next month.
(Image source: MrMobile on YouTube).
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