Blackberry Priv promises to be a victor at a steal

According to Carphone Warehouse, the BlackBerry Priv will be delivered by November 6 and will be priced at £579.95 without SIM.

The smartphone can now be preordered in the United Kingdom from Carphone Warehouse at $890 or AU$1,223.

BlackBerry announced the BlackBerry Priv, their first Android device, a couple of weeks ago and also has been taking pre-registration for anyone interested.

Specs include a 1.8GHz Snapdragon processor, an 18-megapixel camera, and 3GB of RAM. That’s BlackBerry’s Hardware Root of Trust and it’s the first time we’ll see it on Android.

The official video shows BlackBerry’s Android version of the BB10, a deeply integrated unified messaging client, making good on the promise made at MWC in Barcelona to port “the crown jewels” to iOS and Android.

Details of the handset have been around for a while now, and from a hardware perspective, you can mostly expect what’s found in other flagship Android phones. Storage limitations won’t be an issue either, with the phone’s 32GB of integrated internals able to be expanded up to a massive 2TB by use of a microSD card – it’s ticking all the right boxes here, then.

Blackberry has introduced its DTEK warning system app to ensure privacy of the users. To assuage such concerns, BlackBerry has explained the steps it took to apply its “world-renowned security model to Android”. But while the most recent leaks and insider information has focused on the hardware features of the smartphone, BlackBerry is now trying to shift the focus to what it says the Priv is all about; privacy and privilege in the mobile world.

BlackBerry chief executive John Chen wrote an article for CNBC last month explaining the decision to finally migrate to Android, explaining that the new handset will provide “the answer for former BlackBerry users who miss the physical keyboard but needed apps”. All of the important layers are going to have cryptographic locks, which likely means that the PRIV will not be rootable / flashable, unless BlackBerry lets people deactivate these safety features entirely (similar to UEFI’s “Secure Boot”).

In terms of cameras, the BlackBerry Priv will have one up front providing two megapixels, while its rear camera will yield up to 18 megapixels.