After rounds of leaks and rumours, it is now confirmed that a BlackBerry phone with physical QWERTY keyboard is all set to make its debut during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017. Steve Cistulli, President and General Manager for TCL Communication, tweeted “imPRESSively designed. distinctly different. #BlackBerryMobile#CES2017†with a four seconds video showing the physical keyboard on a phone, which hints that the upcoming device could be the much-touted BlackBerry ‘Mercury’.
For those who are not aware, TCL and BlackBerry entered into a licensing deal which allows TCL to design, manufacture, sell and provide customer support for BlackBerry-branded mobile devices. Now, coming to the teaser, the four-second video showcases capacitive keys, which is in line with recently leaked photos of the BlackBerry Mercury.
Previously, we reported that the smartphone will sport a 4.5-inch display with 3:2 ratio with the Qwerty keypad. The device will be powered by a 2.02 GHz Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, Adreno 506 GPU, 3GB of RAM, and 32 GB of Internal storage. It will run on latest Android 7.0 Nougat operating system.
In the camera department, as per the recent leaks, the Blackberry Mercury is expected to come with a 12-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video chats. Besides, the smartphone will offer WiFi, GPS, NFC, Proximity, Accelerometer, Barometer, Gyroscope, Pedometer, and light sensor. Recollecting the Geekbench scores, the Mercury scored 913 points in the single-core test and 5047 points in the multi-core.