BlackBerry has announced the BlackBerry Leap, an affordable 5-inch all-touch smartphone, at MWC 2015.
While last year saw BlackBerry returning to its traditional strength – business-focused smartphones with strong physical keyboards – the company has announced its return to the mainstream all-touch field.
The BlackBerry Leap sports a 5-inch 720p touchscreen display – and yes, that’s in a standard 16:9 aspect ratio rather than anything exotic like the BlackBerry Passport.
What’s more, the BlackBerry Leap will cost just $275 (£179). This apparently means that it’s targeted at “those rising stars who value productivity, communication, and take security seriously” – the kind of scarily driven young types who launch successful startups, we imagine.
To that end, BlackBerry also wants to highlight the Leap’s stamina. Apparently, its 2,800mAh battery can last through 25 hours of heavy usage.
Also helping with this target is a rather outdated Snapdragon S4 Plus dual-core CPU, though this is backed by 2GB of RAM.
The BlackBerry Leap also comes with 16GB of storage as standard, as well as a microSD slot, and an 8-megapixel camera around back.
Read More: How to install Android apps on a BlackBerry phone
Naturally, the Leap will ship with the latest build of the BlackBerry 10 OS, which means it also comes with BlackBerry Assistant – the company’s answer to Siri and Cortana. It responds to your prompts according to context, including whether you access it with vocal or text prompts.
It also means that the BlackBerry Leap will be able to run Android apps through the pre-installed Amazon Appstore.
The BlackBerry Leap will hit European shops in April.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
