After a storm of laptops launches from various manufacturers, finally, we have a smartphone unveiled at the CES 2017. TCL, who now manufacture BlackBerry smartphones, has unveiled a new smartphone which codenamed as ‘Mercury’.
However, don’t get your hopes high as all the information about the exact name, pricing and availability will be made available at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 to be held in February. 
Nevertheless, TCL claims that the new BlackBerry Mercury smartphone is the most secure smartphone ever made with onboard DTEK security feature.
The new smartphone from TCL is based on Android Nougat operating system and sports a trademark BlackBerry QWERTY keypad. In terms of the design, the design looks premium and looks to be made out of metal and rubber all around. Apparently, the target audience of this device are professional and business people and it also comes with some of the traditional BlackBerry apps such as Hub+. The display on this new device is a 4.5-inch display and is in a ratio of 3:2 to the QWERTY keypad. This keypad is touch sensitive and is covered with a glossy like finish to give it a feel of glass material. The smartphone also comes with a fingerprint scanner which is embedded into the spacebar. The traditional capacitive trackpad has also made a comeback with this device. Coming back to the design, the new ‘Mercury’ codenamed smartphone actually looks like a BlackBerry unlike the previous two smartphones i.e. DTEK50 and DTEK60 which were merely a design steal from Alcatel’s Idol 4S.
Although the exact specifications haven’t been revealed but based on hands-on experience of some of the critiques, the smartphone is powered by a 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, Adreno 506 GPU, 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage. In the camera department, it features an 18-megapixel camera at both front and back.
Nicolas Zibell, CEO, TCL Communication, said at the time of unveiling – “At TCL Communication, we are committed to creating the best BlackBerry products for consumers and enterprise users. Together with BlackBerry’s smartphone software platform, this partnership will create the most secure Android products.”
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.