By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
New York, NY – BlackBerry hosted an event in New York today to launch its most anticipated smartphone yet. The BlackBerry Classic aims to bring back loyal users with familiar features.
Rejoining the smartphone fray late in the year, the new BlackBerry Classic has long been teased as ‘the one worth waiting for,’ for users of older BlackBerry Bold devices.
The smartphone is powerful yet brings back many key BlackBerry features such as the trackpad as well as the ‘belt’ or row of function buttons above the QWERTY keyboard. The device was launched today in concurrent events in New York, Frankfurt and Singapore.
The event took place in Wall Street, steps from the New York Stock Exchange and the choice of venue was no coincidence. The device is being targeted to CEO’s, business owners and important people who need to get things done.
What does the Classic bring to the table? Aside from a familiar form factor, the device features a 3.5-inch touch screen with a 720 x 720 resolution. A 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and an 8 megapixel camera as well as a reported 35-hour battery life.
With BlackBerrys market share trailing Android, iOS and even Windows Phone, it seems that a new device targeted to the a small and very specific niche of CEO’s, politicians and some celebrities might do little to move the needle in BlackBerrys favour going forward.
Then again, BlackBerry has never shied away from releasing extremely niche devices, it does sell hideously expensive special edition Porsche Design handsets to people with more money than sense.
The Classic focuses on productivity and runs the latest version of the BB1o OS which can run BlackBerry specific apps as well as some Android applications accessed from the Amazon App Store.
The BlackBerry Classic actually went on preorder sales weeks ago from Amazon and also from BlackBerry’s own online store.
The device, which was sold unlocked for US $499, initial stock was sold out in a number of days.
“Sure, we’ve got new BlackBerry devices that break the mold ,including the BlackBerry Passport. But we also recognize that a lot of you continue to hang on to your Bold devices because they get the job done, day in and day out – just like you,” said BlackBerry CEO John Chen. “We get it, and we’ve got you covered.”
Chen also added that, “We are committed to earning your business – or earning it back, if that’s the case.” This seems to be the mandate behind the BlackBerry Classic.
BlackBerry also launched enterprise versions of their BBM messaging platform as well as BlackBerry Blend for enterprise, which enables messages and data from the smartphone to be managed remotely on a Mac or a PC.
The BlackBerry Classic is designed for speedy navigation and for being able to be productive. It is expected to come to Canada through various carriers and will start shipping next week.
Whether or not the BlackBerry Classic will bring back the fans and loyalist and whether it is solid enough to entice new users now using phablets or smartphones made by the competition remains to be seen.
