BlackBerry’s First Powered By Android Secure Smartphone In Hong Kong

PRIV Delivers the Best of BlackBerry Privacy and Productivity to the Largest App Ecosystem

Nov 12, 2015

“Building our first BlackBerry smartphone powered by Android is one of the boldest and most exciting steps BlackBerry has taken to expand and diversify our strategy to help professionals and organizations around the world operate more productively, effectively and securely across a wide range of platforms,” said Gallant Leon, Managing Director, North Asia, BlackBerry. “For the first time, users will have the best of BlackBerry while enjoying the access and flexibility of Android. This step shouldn’t be a surprise as we’ve been quickly expanding BlackBerry’s product portfolio across all operating system platforms – as we have done with BES12, BBM messaging and the rest of our enterprise software and services portfolio.”

A New Standard for Security and Privacy 

PRIV was designed with security at its core, building on BlackBerry’s legacy of security and keeping private its customers’ data. Security highlights include:

• · Advanced Privacy Controls: The exclusive DTEK™ by BlackBerry® app for Android™ monitors and reports on application access to the microphone, camera, location and personal information, enabling users to be confident that their personal data is being kept private. Users can know at a glance when their privacy could be at risk so they can take action to improve it.
• · Secure Hardware: BlackBerry’s hardware root of trust, a unique manufacturing process, injects cryptographic keys into the device hardware, providing a secure foundation for the entire platform.
• · Verified Boot and Secure Bootchain: Keys have been embedded to verify every layer of the device from hardware to OS to applications in order to make sure they haven’t been tampered with. Additionally, thousands of modifications were made to harden the Linux kernel with numerous patches and configuration changes to improve security.
• · Fully supported on BlackBerry’s EMM Solution: PRIV can be integrated with our leading EMM solution, BES 12, which offers cross-platform management of PRIV and other devices; providing a full end to end security solution and secure collaboration applications for business users like Secusuite for secure voice and WatchDox for secure file sharing.

A New Standard for the Slider Form Factor

As part of BlackBerry’s cross-platform strategy to provide a greater choice of secure solutions to its customers, users will see a seamless merging of key BlackBerry 10 productivity features like the BlackBerry Hub and BlackBerry Calendar into PRIV. Additional key features include:

• ·  Full Android App and Ecosystem Experience – PRIV brings incredible new features to the Android platform and gives users full access to over one million applications: whether it’s Instagram, Spotify, Uber or BBM®, you’ll find it on Google Play^TM.
• ·  Best of Both Keyboards – offers the freedom to choose between a virtual keyboard or a physical keyboard for speed and accuracy.
• ·  Tough and Beautiful Screen – A stunning 5.4-inch immersive dual-curve OLED display offers plenty of room to work or play with rich colors, deep black levels and less power consumption. At a resolution of 2560×1440, it sports an incredible pixel density of 540 PPI – 4x the amount of pixels of a standard HDTV. Along the screen’s curved edge is the Productivity Tab that provides an “at a glance” view of the most pertinent info from BlackBerry Hub, Calendar, Task, and Contacts.
• ·  Full-day Battery Life – PRIV has a 3410 mAh battery with enough power to work up to 22.5 straight hours of mixed usage*.
• ·  State-of-the-Art Camera – Engineered to deliver professional looking photos with minimal effort, an 18MP camera, certified by Schneider-Kreuznach®, integrates technologies commonly found in DSLR cameras.
• ·  Powerful Performance and Expandable Storage – PRIV is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, a premium-tier chipset designed to offer consumers a superior and compelling user experience along with peace of mind with Qualcomm® SecureMSM™ technology and Qualcomm® Snapdragon Studio Access™ content protection. Plus, with 32 GB of onboard storage and support for micro SD cards up to 2TB, the new PRIV gives users the flexibility to add affordable and hot-swappable storage to download, install, capture and share as their needs evolve.
• ·  BlackBerry® Natural Sound – PRIV comes with powerful speakers and a three-microphone system that delivers a high-quality listening experience. BlackBerry® Natural Sound Technology is built in to adapt Wi-Fi and cellular call sound depending upon phone position and background noise, automatically adjusting volume so users don’t have to.
• ·  Android™ for Work – PRIV comes ready for work. Android for Work support allows for fast, simple and secure integration with the enterprise environment. Seamless integration with Google Play for Work enables easy access to IT-managed apps.

While PRIV will provide a choice in operating system to new and existing customers, the company remains committed to the BlackBerry 10 operating system, and will continue to release platform updates focused on security and privacy enhancements.

Availability and Pricing

PRIV will be available at an MSRP of HK$6,488 and will be available at China Mobile Hong Kong Company Limited, csl. and 1O1O under CSL Mobile Limited, SmarTone and 3 Hong Kong; as well as authorized resellers including Broadway Photo Supply Ltd, Chung Yuen Electrical Co, Ltd, Fortress, Hong Kong Suning, Nuance-Watson (HK) Limited and Wilson Communications Ltd and authorized distributor Qool International Ltd.

For more information on PRIV, go to www.BlackBerry.com/PRIV. Follow all updates to PRIV on the Inside BlackBerry blog.

* Based on mixed usage scenario.  Many factors affect battery life, including network connectivity, application usage, feature configuration and battery age. Actual results may vary.