14 DAY TRIAL // BlackBerry has announced that it's done with the smartphone business, as it won't be developing its own devices anymore. Instead, the Canadian company will embrace the same licensing strategy adopted by Nokia, it will sell the intellectual right and license the BlackBerry name to the company that wants it and has the money for it.
The company is already in talks with two major companies in China and India, which seem to compete head to head for the right to build and sell BlackBerry smartphones in the next year.
A decision hasn't been made yet, but we're expecting an official announcement by the end of the year or in early 2017.
Until then, BlackBerry plans to launch one more smartphone developed in-house, the long-rumored Mercury.
Before the DTEK60 made it to market, the Canadian company promised to release a QWERTY smartphone and even if in the meantime it decided to change its smartphone business model, that device will still make it to the shelves.
BlackBerry's CEO John Chen confirmed last month that the QWERTY smartphone that his company promised to its fans would eventually be announced and released on the market.
No confirmed specs aside from the QWERTY keyboard
Today, a few live pictures of the unannounced QWERTY smartphone leaked in China. This could very well be the Mercury that many fans are waiting for, since it comes with the traditional BlackBerry keyboard.
Unfortunately, the pictures don't come with any details about the phone's specs. According to previous rumors, the Mercury should come with an unusual 4.5-inch display that supports full HD (1080p) resolution.
Also, the smartphone is said to pack an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, coupled with an Adreno 506 graphics processing unit and 3GB of RAM.
Other highlights of the phone could include an 18-megapixel rear-facing camera, a secondary 8-megapixel camera in the front and a 3,400 mAh battery. Keep in mind, though, that none of these details has been confirmed yet.
