Blackberry
has leapt back into the touchscreen game, based on their recently launched
offering at the MWC (Mobile World Conference) in Barcelona, Spain on Tuesday
March 3rd 2015!
They've
launched the Blackberry Leap, their first fully Touchscreen smartphone that's
NOT sporting their trademark physical Keyboard as reported in the article “Blackberry
outs touchscreen Leap, teases slider Blackberry”, published March 3, 2015
12:36 AM PST, by Roger Cheng, CNET News.
 |
Their
previously launched smartphones, including the Blackberry Classic that made a
splash on AT&T on Friday February 20th 2015 as reported in my blog article entitled
“US$649.99
Blackberry Passport and US$419.99 Blackberry Classic - Why Americans are ready
to fall in love with Blackberry” were all smartphones with this physical
keyboard.
 |
In
addition to the Blackberry Leap, which will go live in Europe in April 2015 for
US$275 on a two year contract, the company also teased an unknown Blackberry
model with a slide out keyboard. Blackberry plans to release a second Blackberry
Porsche and possibly another Blackberry Classic.
To
list them out, they are an impressive lineup all launched in 2014, albeit none
of them are a hit:
1.
Blackberry Classic
2.
Blackberry Passport
3.
Blackberry Porsche
4.
Blackberry Z3
So
why is Blackberry so adamant for a hit in the smartphone game despite seeing
continuous success in the Corporate world with their Blackberry BES 12 for
secure Cloud Computing as noted in my Geezam
blog article entitled “AnyConnect
for Samsung Knox is a Cisco Systems partnership for Secure VPN Communications”.
Because
every penny counts to the still recovering Blackberry!
Blackberry Leap - Specs
of Blackberry's latest Leap into Touchscreen seeking Profits
Blackberry
desperately needs a hit, being as smartphones account a full 3/4 of their
Profits from the sale of their smartphones.
 |
The
5" smartphones looks like the Blackberry Z3 but without the keyboard as
noted in the article “Blackberry
unveils all-touch five-inch Leap”, published March 3, 2015 By Liam Tung, ZDNet.
It
runs on Blackberry OS 10.3.1 and the 5" display has a resolution of 1280 x
720 pixel resolution (294 pixels per inch). The Blackberry Leap is powered by
Qualcomm's MSM 8960 Snapdragon S4 1.5GHz processor that's supported by 2GB of
RAM, 16GB internal of storage and 128GB microSD Card support.
 |
This,
interestingly, is the same processor used by the Blackberry Z3 as noted in the
article “Blackberry
Leap release date price, specifications: new budget smartphone is aimed at
young professionals”, published 03 March 15 By Jim Martin, PC Advisor.
At
last it ready for the selfie trend, as its got a 2 Megapixel Front facing
Camera and a 8 megapixel Rear facing camera. All this is wrapped up in a
delicious black candybar shape with 4G LTE Internet support and a 2800mAh
non-removable battery for about twenty five (25) hours worth of battery life..
Blackberry Needs a Hit
with the Leap – Leap of Faith as unknown Slider coming
You’ll
still be tethered to your charger, depending on your usage of the Blackberry
Leap which gets about 25 hours on a single charge. So prepare to be somewhat
underwhelmed by the lack of performance. Still, that’s rather nice that they
provided 128GB microSD Card support, as Cloud Internet Storage isn't always
reliable.
 |
So
yes, Blackberry really needs a hit, albeit based on the specs of the Blackberry
Leap, there is nothing exciting that sets it apart from the competition in the
same price range. But the concept of a Slider, which also made a showing at MWC
2015!
Blackberry’s
sales have basically been falling off a
cliff according to stats from Analyst Gartner as noted in the article “Blackberry unveils Leap with
no physical keyboard at MWC”, published 3 March 2015, BBC News.
According
to Analyst Gartner, their Smartphone sales have been falling since 2011:
- 51.5 million handsets in 2011
- 18.6 million handsets in 2013
- 7.9 million handsets in 2014
Another
analyst, eMarketer, expects UK sales to drop to 700,000 from the lofty high of
some 2.5 million units in 2013. So with more Smartphone coming later in 2015,
will these smartphones being launched at MWC (Mobile World Conference) in
Barcelona, Spain marks a turnaround for the company? We’ll just have to wait
until the summer of 2015 to find out!
No comments:
Post a Comment