Blackberry Passport: A Handset with Dual Control Keyboard

Blackberry has introduced a brand new smartphone featuring square screen with a keyboard which tends to have both physical and touch enabled gesture control. It offers a powerful and strong hardware with a bunch of clever features along with a solid foundation in BlackBerry OS 10.3.It is expected to be favorable to those users who are work focused by this handset’s innovations. The Blackberry Passport is hoping to give the company a huge sales boost as sales of the handsets are on the downward side in the recent time because of the innovation introductions made by its rivals. Analysts have criticized that it may appeal the users who already use Blackberry handset but it will struggle while winning over the others. It is a tactical part of an expand turnaround strategy; said by the new appointed Chief Executive, Marty Beard. This strategy has been led by John Chen.

Marty Beard said, “You’re going to see us be very focused. Potentially, in the past we got a little too broad a little too aggressively.Our target segment is more enterprise-focused. It’s the power professional. It’s someone who wants to be productive. Those users tend to be in regulated industries like banking or healthcare or government. We know those segments really well – in a way it’s getting back to the Blackberry roots.”

This phone is waiting to be published this week in USA; for $599, in France and Germany for €649, in Canada for $699&£529 for the UK. It is also coming to Australia though there have been no sales dates or pricing available. Blackberry has stated that AT&T will be carrying the handset in the USA. But they have not issued any certain date of publication and inauguration date.
It has been named passport because of the dimension which resemble a thick version about the travel document. It has 4.5 inch (11.4 cm) touchscreen including a resolution of 453 pixels per inch; which is higher than the iPhone but lower than that of Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Blackberry has claimed that here in this Passport handset, documents get easier in terms of reading & editing. An example will reveal the simplicity. If you swipe a finger swiftly left side along the keys, then the previous word will be deleted. But if you slide a thumb along the words more slowly, the cursor will be moving the same direction.

Regarding this new context, Mr. Beard said, “In some cases it takes a while to learn it, because even if you’re familiar with a Blackberry it’s a little bit different because it’s that combination of physical plus virtual. So there may be that learning curve in the beginning, but it’s well worth it, and once people learn it they are flying.” Shaun Collins, who is the founder of telecom consultancy CCS Insight; has supported the claim that Mr. Beard made. He said, “It certainly made me respond more eloquently to emails rather than just triaging them with a ‘Yes, no, I’ll call you back or see you later’,” said Shaun Collins, founder of the telecoms consultancy CCS Insight. However, it’s going to divide opinion – it gives you the Blackberry experience on steroids. But for a broader audience it will be a curiosity.”