Blackberry Priv is a Swan Song and Nothing More

It’s an understandable move for the Canadian smartphone maker, which has been known for both its friendliness toward business users and its commitment to security on its phones.

BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) believes it could ship as many as five million of the new smartphone in one year.

This feels significant given the Priv marks a major change in direction for BlackBerry.

BlackBerry is also accepting orders for the phone on its website.

Essentially, the company is promising to keep you protected from threats you don’t know exist, before they’re even disclosed to the community at large and possibly used for malicious information attacks. It certainly wouldn’t be a good start to BlackBerry’s Android career if the company failed to bring the latest version of Android to its only handset.

The Blackberry Priv also has the traditional BBM application of the company though TechRadar said it has been rendered not really useful since not a lot of people with Android phones have this application installed.

What could be the last phone BlackBerry will ever manufacture is getting a warm response from analysts and consumers. The lack of applications made Blackberry less attractive for users, therefore in 2014 Blackberry opted to use the Android OS in its new “Passport” phone.

While talking to the folks at Android Central, Ron Louks, BlackBerry’s President of Devices and in a briefing in London with Gareth Hurn, Global Director of Device Portfolio Planning, hinted at the update sometime next year.

It will also feature a long(ish) lasting battery, that lasts for 23 hours – whoop! and a slide-out keyboard, such as those never seen on normal smartphones. More importantly, he was left with the clear thought that BlackBerry is serious about this foray in to the world of Android phones. Other Android-based phones, from brands such as Motorola and LG, are cheaper still. BlackBerry’s entire smartphone-making division is depending on it.