Blackberry, is no longer what it used to be, having its market share watered down by other players such as Apple inc., Samsung and even Huawei. This realisation culminated in the company announcing that it will cease all internal hardware development, meaning the firm will no longer internally make smartphones. Blackberry said they have entered into a licensing agreement with BB Merah Putih of Indonesia to manufacture, distribute and promote BlackBerry-branded devices running on Android.
One of the new products of BlackBerry’s shift in focus from designing its own devices is the DTEK50, which, unlike the Priv, wasn’t designed by BlackBerry’s internal teams. Instead, its design and manufacturing are sourced from Chinese device maker TCL which also behind the Alcatel brand of smartphones. The DTEK50 borrows heavily from Alcatel’s latest flagship Idol smartphones. The DTEK 50 was during its launch taunted as the most secure smartphones. The phone did not, however, gain as much traction as the company hoped despite its introductory price point.
Blackberry has now announced the launched of the DTEK 60 smartphone, also manufactured in collaboration with TCL. The DTEK 60, which may be the last smartphone by the Canadian company before becoming a fully-fledged software services entity, runs on Android is available for $499. The DTEK 60 largely resembles the Alcatel idol 4s and sports a Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor; 21-megapixel rear camera; 3,000mAh battery with QuickCharge 3.0, a USB Type C port and a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner according to The Verge. The device packs Android 6.0 Marshmallow and BlackBerry says it is working to roll out a Nougat upgrade to the device. Just like the DTEK 50, Blackberry is marketing the device as ultrasecure, saying they have added numerous security patches to the device. Well.
