The BlackBerry Priv is a surprising device in more ways than one. It’s surprising because it’s an Android phone made by BlackBerry and it’s surprising because it has a slide-out keyboard, which is something rarely seen on Android handsets.
Those things certainly help it stand out and it has some healthy specs too, but is that enough for it to compete in an increasingly crowded market?
The BlackBerry Priv has a 5.4-inch 1440 x 2560 AMOLED screen with a pixel density of 540 pixels per inch. So it’s very big, very sharp and very bright.
Those are all good things unless you’re particularly in the market for a small smartphone. The screen is pretty strong too, as it’s protected by Gorilla Glass 4 and it has two curved edges, which is another slightly surprising thing about it, since Samsung is the only other company that’s particularly doing that.
The BlackBerry Priv is smart more than stylish, which is no surprise given its business-focused heritage. But it looks good and premium with its curved screen and patterned back.
It’s not slim at 9.4mm thick, but then it’s got a big battery, a slide out keyboard and decent specs, so the space has seemingly been used well.
Speaking of the keyboard, that can sit hidden away when not in use, so the Priv looks almost like any other touchscreen smartphone, but with that extra tool there, ready to slide out when you need it.
There’s a hexa-core Snapdragon 808 processor powering the BlackBerry Priv. It has four cores running at 1.44GHz and two clocked at 1.82GHz, so it’s pretty powerful, though not quite a match for the octa-core Snapdragon 810 found in the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S6 for example.
Then again, the 808 is also lighter on your battery and doesn’t heat the phone up as much, so it has its advantages.
There’s also 3GB of RAM included, which is enough to give the BlackBerry Priv flagship performance, letting it speed through whatever you throw at it.
The BlackBerry Priv has an 18MP rear camera with optical image stabilisation and a dual-LED flash, for stunning photos in any conditions. With tweakable colour filters and exposure control settings you also have a lot of control over how your images come out and the camera can shoot video in 2160p at 30fps, so your home movies will be high quality too.
There’s a 2MP camera on the front, which isn’t quite so impressive, especially when many phones now have 5MP or higher front-facing cameras, but it can still take a reasonably detailed selfie shot.
The main feature of the BlackBerry Priv is its slide-out keyboard, which gives you the power to be seriously productive on your smartphone.
Even the touchscreen keyboard is decent, but if you want to type out long emails and messages the physical keyboard is so much better.
The BlackBerry Priv also sports BlackBerry’s DTEK privacy system, which shows you how secure your device is at a glance and lets you monitor and control application access to your personal details and phone functions.
Of course the BlackBerry Priv also runs Android, which is a big deal for a BlackBerry device. It gives you full access to Android apps from Google Play but also comes with BlackBerry features like BlackBerry Hub, which is a unified inbox for your texts, emails, social media messages and more.
For a visual overview of many of the BlackBerry Priv’s features check out the video below.
The BlackBerry Priv has a pretty huge 3410 mAh battery, which gives it life of up to 22.5 hours of mixed use. That’s longer than most smartphones last for, though less than the likes of the Moto X Force.
With the help of the curved screen you can see the battery status even when your handset is sleeping, as it will light up just a small area on one edge to show you.
There’s 32GB of built in storage plus a microSD card slot with support for cards of up to 200GB and for connectivity options you get Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, Bluetooth 4.1 and NFC.
The BlackBerry Priv looks set to be one of the best phones BlackBerry has made in a long time, with a great screen, a premium design, a good keyboard, lots of power and a long lasting battery, though it’s questionable how well it will do.
The keyboard and smart design aren’t likely to be major selling points for most Android users, especially given the high £579.99 price tag. For existing BlackBerry fans or any Android users who do take a chance on it the Priv is likely to impress, but we don’t expect it will change BlackBerry’s fortunes.
