Blackberry's New Phone Announced

A couple of days ago an image of Blackberry's second attempted Android device was leaked along with some minor details. Today RIM officially unveiled their new smartphone, but can it compete with the flagship offerings from the current market leaders, is it noteworthy enough to get consumers interested?

The Specs

The BlackBerry Motion features a 5.5-inch Full HD display (without their iconic keyboard), a Snapdragon processor, 4 GB of RAM, a dual SIM card slot, a big 4,000 mAh battery, and compatibility with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0. It also has an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance. It will retail for approximately $460 US. This isn't a highly detailed list of specifications however, given the suggested retail price, it can placed somewhere between the mid-range and high-end devices.

Just Short of Flagship Material

This phone falls just short of other high-end devices with certain specifications and trends. For instance, it isn’t pushing a 4k display (and most likely no VR capabilities). No iris scanner or (known) facial recognition, however there is still a fingerprint scanner (unlike the iPhone X). And despite the current trend, there’s still a home button (with a large bezel to accompany it). None of these are particularly must-have features or limitations, but in fact, may actually boost other features such as battery life.

What Differentiates It?

Where this new Blackberry could excel is in the area of its security focused apps which has always been a strong point for the company. Mobile security, privacy and information security in general is a major topic of concern in all forums, whether its personal, business or at the political level. RIM should target their marketing towards customers from this perspective, corporations would definitely appreciate this approach since to protect their strategy and their reputation. If they can re-establish a niche market from this perspective, it would certainly help them claw their way back into the industry.

Years ago, Blackberry wasn’t just synonymous with smartphones, but was practically the definition of it before the iPhone revolutionized came in and revolutionized the industry. It will be interesting to see if RIM can recapture some of their lost customers with their new approach.