BlackBerry was known as the device for the working man. Most companies provided these units to their associates because they were fuss-free and direct to the point. And yet, with the increase in competition and the rise of the smartphone, BlackBerry has taken a back seat.
According to Know Your Mobile, however, the company did release the BlackBerry Priv was released last year. Because the unit was its first shot an Android phone, there was a lot of room from improvement. Although when asked about how the unit was selling, CEO John Chen said, "So far, so good." BlackBerry originally planned to sell at least 600,000 units of the Priv.
Chen does admit however, that BlackBerry may have overlooked their core consumer. He shares that because the company focused on premium specs, that it may have sacrificed a little on the pricing. With its rumored next releases, BlackBerry will not be making the same mistake.
The publication claims that BlackBerry is working on two new Android devices - codenamed the BlackBerry Hamburg and the BlackBerry Rome.
Hamburg is expected to have an oct-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor and will run on 3GB of RAM. The internal storage is modest at 16GB, but the company may still provide options. The rear camera will be 12 megapixels, and the front camera will be 8 megapixels. It may be priced at about $400.
At this point, there are no specs on Rome. However, one individual who has had the chance to work on them did say that "the Rome has internal specs that are like that of the Priv."
Indeed, a report from Reuters suggests that BlackBerry's top goal is to make their devices profitable this year. Chen, at the company's annual investors meeting, said "The devices business must be profitable, because we don't want to run a business that drags onto the bottom line."
The report goes on to quote Chen as saying, however that he doesn't "personally believe handsets will be the future of any company," including his own. In fact, he is partial to focus on providing services which enable commoditized hardware to be capable of more. So instead, the main focus of BlackBerry may be to provide software, instead of manufacture mobile units.
