Only some are interested in carrying BlackBerry smartphones

Mar 10, 2015 02:34 GMT  ·  By

BlackBerry announced a new smartphone, the Leap, last week during Mobile World Congress 2015 trade fair. The Canadian company revealed that the smartphone would go on sale this spring, but Europeans might have a hard time getting one.

Little is known about its price tag as well, or exactly where the smartphone will be available. We mentioned earlier that Europeans would have a hard time getting one because a few carriers confirmed they would sell the smartphone in the UK.

Since an exact release date is not yet available, it's hard to say when it will hit shelves in the UK or other countries, but we expect authorized retailers to spill the beans on launch date in the coming weeks.

One UK-based carrier in particular, Vodafone, announced that it would offer the BlackBerry Leap, MobileNewsCWP reports. But there's a catch, as the smartphone will not be available for everyone.

Vodafone UK will only sell the BlackBerry Leap to business customers. EE also confirmed that the smartphone would be available through its official retail channels, but Three and O2 don't seem to be interested in the Leap.

According to Vodafone, BlackBerry Leap will be available for purchase sometime in April for £162 ($275) outright, so this isn't even an expensive smartphone.

An all-touch smartphone with mid-range specs

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that major European carriers ignore BlackBerry's new smartphones, but their attitude is related to the low demand of these devices in the region.

BlackBerry Leap is an all-touch smartphone equipped with a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory, which can be further expanded up to 128GB via microSD card slot.

The device also sports a 5-inch HD (720p) capacitive touchscreen display, an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2800 mAh battery that promises 25 hours of continuous use.