BlackBerry Passport Arrives in India, costs INR 49,990

Within a week of its official unveiling at three simultaneous events held in Toronto, London and Dubai, BlackBerry’s new flagship the BlackBerry Passport has been launched in India. The smartphone is available for pre-order exclusively on Amazon’s Indian site up to October 10.

BlackBerry Passport is priced at INR 49,990 (about $810) in India which is at par with the prices of many current flagship Android phones in the market, but its price is much more compared to iPhone 5s which is being offered at heavily discounted prices by e-commerce sites in India. However, customers who pre-order the BlackBerry Passport through Amazon will receive a gift card worth INR 5000 and 5000 Jet privilege miles.

The BlackBerry Passport is the size of an actual international passport and has an unusual square-shaped 4.5-inch touch screen display with resolution of 1440x1440p. The handset also has a unique 3-row QWERTY keypad doubling up as a touch sensitive swipe-pad. Other specs include Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC with a quad-core processor clocked at 2.2GHz and Adreno 330 GPU for graphics. The BlackBerry Passport will have a 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage expandable up to 128GB, a 13 megapixel rear camera and a 2 magapixel front shooter. The handset will come with the latest BlackBerry OS 10.3 with voice assistant, android app support and pre-loaded BlackBerry World and Amazon Appstore.

BlackBerry Passport Arrives in India, costs INR 49,990

Unlocked BlackBerry Passport available for $599, company announces many new features

BlackBerry has officially announced its new flagship smartphone, the BlackBerry Passport on Wednesday, September 24 at three simultaneous events held in Toronto, London and Dubai. The device is available unlocked for $599 just as BlackBerry CEO John Chen had said earlier this week.

The BlackBerry Passport (unlocked) is available through ShopBlackBerry.com in Canada, US, UK, Germany, France soon after the launch at ”special introductory rates”. You can get the handset in Canada for $699, in UK for £529, in US for $599 and in Germany and France for €649. You can also buy the unlocked device through Amazon.com but the retailer has not announced its price yet.

Canada’s Telus is offering the BlackBerry Passport at an introductory price of $200 until October 1 after which it will be available at the regular rate of $250. The exclusive carrier for US will be AT&T. BlackBerry announced that the handset will be available in over 30 countries by the end of the year. These include Canada, US, UK, France, India, Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia, Switzerland, Russia, Spain, Romania, Saudi Arabia and the other parts of the Middle East, Nigeria, South Africa, Vietnam, Mexico, Venezuela, Slovakia, and Colombia.

Special features of the BlackBerry Passport include:

• The innovative touch-enabled Keyboard


• Massive 3,450 mAh battery with 30 hours battery life


• Big square 4.5-inch 1440 x1440 resolution screen


• Natural Sound technology that gives high audio and call quality


• The new BlackBerry 10.3 OS that comes with the BlackBerry Assistant


• BlackBerry Hub with Instant Action feature that allows users to perform actions such as deleting a file or managing the inbox just by tapping the related icon etc.


• Two appstores preloaded – BlackBerry World and Amazon Appstore and users will get 1 free Android app everyday out of thousands of Android apps giving them access to games such as Minecraft, Temple Run 2, Candy Crush Saga, Cut the Rope 2 and Pinterest. The BlackBerry OS 10.3 update will enable users of other BlackBerry 10 devices to download this too.

Other features of the Blackberry Passport include 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 CPU and Adreno 330 GPU, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage expandable up to 128GB via microSD card, a Nano-SIM card slot, a 13MP rear OIS camera and a 2MP front-facing camera. The dimensions of BlackBerry Passport are 128×90.1×9.3mm and its connectivity options include 3G, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Micro-USB + Micro-HDMI via SlimPort, USB OTG, NFC, GPS, GPRS/ EDGE, DLNA, Glonass.

Unlocked BlackBerry Passport available for $599, company announces many new features

BlackBerry Passport gets GCF certification

BlackBerry’s upcoming flagship smartphone BlackBerry Passport has generated a lot of buzz among smartphone consumers. The device is going through the process of getting various certifications ahead of its September launch. After passing through the FCC, it has now obtained the GCF certification. GCF has posted a tweet announcing this.

New! GCF-Certified Mobile Phone from @BlackBerry Find out more at http://t.co/u4yI7UPOrj

— GCF (@GCF_Certified) July 31, 2014

BlackBerry Passport sports a square 4.5-inch QHD touchscreen with a 1440 x 1440 resolution (pixel density 453ppi)  offering a great viewing experience and a 3GB RAM. Other rumored specs include 13MP rear camera and 3MP front-facing camera. The high capacity battery of 3450mAh will keep the smartphone running throughout the day. Its operating system is BlackBerry 10.3 and it would come with the BlackBerry Assistant

The smartphone boasts of a unique three-row touch-enabled QWERTY keyboard. It also has a virtual 4th row on the screen that automatically displays the virtual keys of numbers and symbols based on the context of what you are typing. For instance, if you are typing an email, the symbol ‘@’ will appear in the virtual key row or if you are surfing the web, the symbols ‘: ‘and ‘/’will be displayed.

Pre-registrations for the BlackBerry Passport have already begun. Those who are interested can register at the link provided and get more details about the smartphone. This is not a pre-booking or a pre-ordering of the device but just an expression of interest in the soon-to-be-launched phone. You will be notified about the details and availability of the smartphone through email.

The BlackBerry Passport is expected to launch sometime in September but its pricing has not been revealed yet.

BlackBerry Passport gets GCF certification

Watch the BlackBerry Passport in action in a leaked video

The upcoming BlackBerry Passport is an unusual smartphone having a square 4.5-inch QHD screen with a resolution of 1440x 1440. The handset was unveiled by BlackBerry’s CEO John Chen himself recently. Now a leaked hands-on video gives a good idea about the smartphone.

A unique feature of the BlackBerry Passport is its three-row QWERTY keyboard and a virtual 4th row above it on the screen that automatically shows the numbers and symbols based on what you are typing. For example, the @ symbol is displayed when you are typing an email or the ‘: ‘ and ‘/’ are displayed when you are surfing the web. If you have made a mistake, you can just swipe back to delete it. According to BlackBerry, this ‘smart’ keyboard will enable users to type ‘faster than ever before’.

Now, a video has been uploaded on YouTube showing how the BlackBerry Passport operates. It shows how the QWERTY keyboard also works as a touchpad. The touch-enabled keyboard enables you to scroll the apps, emails and web pages by just brushing your fingers lightly over the keys. You can double-tap the keyboard to position the cursor wherever you want it on the screen.

You can watch the video for yourself here:

The BlackBerry Passport features a 3GB of RAM and a powerful 3450mAh battery. For better sound, it has stereo speakers and four microphones on board. The smartphone has the BlackBerry 10.3 OS and comes with the BlackBerry Assistant.

The BlackBerry Passport is expected to be launched sometime in September this year but its pricing is not yet known.

 

Watch the BlackBerry Passport in action in a leaked video