BlackBerry ends support for Priv, its first Android phone

BlackBerry ends support for Priv, its first Android phone







The BlackBerry Priv has officially reached its end of life, the Canadian major has announced. The Priv, which was notably BlackBerry's first Android phone, will not get any more monthly security updates from the company going forward. BlackBerry will however continue to offer support for the Priv in case critical security vulnerabilities gets exposed in the near future, the company has further announced. Also BlackBerry will fulfill all warranty obligations for the handset, it says.
"When we introduced our first Android device more than 24 months ago, we committed to delivering 2 years of monthly software updates for the Priv. Having now stepped outside the original 2-year window, we will no longer be delivering monthly updates for the Priv moving forward," BlackBerry said in a blog post.
At the same time, BlackBerry has announced that it will introduce a trade-up program for current BlackBerry customers who are still using the Priv as well as those holding onto BB10 and BBOS devices soon. The trade-up program will allow them to conveniently upgrade to a BlackBerry KeyOne or Motion hopefully at discounted prices.
Also Read: BlackBerry says Priv will not get Android Nougat
BlackBerry launched the Priv in India in early 2016 at a ridiculously high price of Rs 62,990. The Priv has since received numerous price cuts. The Priv came with an all-plastic build but was characteristic BlackBerry in that it came with a hardware 4-row QWERTY keyboard. The phone employed a slider mechanism wherein the keyboard stayed put underneath the main display at all times unless needed. A gentle slide out from the lower end of the screen pulled out the keyboard for all intends and purposes.
Hardware specs on the Priv included: a 5.4-inch Quad-HD AMOLED display with a 1440x2560 pixels resolution, a 1.8GHz hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor with Adreno 418 GPU and 3GB RAM, 32GB of internal storage (expandable). The phone packed in an 18-megapixel rear-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture lens and Schneider-Kreuznach optics. The camera was aided by Optical Image Stabilisation, phase detection autofocus and dual-LED (dual tone) flash. There was also a 2-megapixel camera on the front.
The single-SIM phone ran Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out-of-the-box and came with BlackBerry's own secure and productivity modifications up top. The Priv was backed by a non-removable 3,410 mAh battery with support for Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 technology.