The folks at BlackBerry seem to be brewing a midranger without physical keys, dubbed “BlackBerry Rio”. According to pictures, which allegedly portray the new smartphone, it looks a bit like the company’s entry-level Z3 handset, though, rumors claim it has received a spec buff, launching it in mid-range territory.
Reportedly, BlackBerry says the Rio (a.k.a Z20) is aimed at “Power Pros who want to be considered by others as being current with technology, yet cost is a major consideration in their purchase decision.” – a pitch that reminds us of Microsoft’s “Affordable flagship” motto for the Lumia 830, but extended into a bulkier sentence – let’s hope that’s not their official tagline for the phone.
Otherwise, the Rio is expected to pack a 5-inch, 720p display, 8 MP / 2 MP camera combo, a 1.5 Ghz Dual-Core SnapDragon S4 SoC, 2 GB of RAM, a 2,800 mAh battery, and 16 GB of expandable internal storage. The handset is expected to launch around February 2015 with a price-tag of around $300.
The choice of CPU has us a bit baffled and we’d say a piece of info was probably skewed, while traveling down the rumor pipe, as this doesn’t sound like a handset that’s going to have its feet firmly planted in the 2015 midrange arena, especially now that phones are making the switch to 64-bit, quad- or octa-core processors en masse. Of course, BlackBerry runs its own proprietary software, which may or may not be optimized accordingly, so between that and the unconfirmed hardware information.
Expected specs of BlackBerry Rio or Z20
- 9.5 mm profile
- 5-inch display
- 1280*720 resolution
- 2MP front facing, 8MP rear facing cameras
- 2800 mAh non-removable battery
- MSM 8960 Dual Core 1.5 GHz processor
- 2 GB RAM, 16GB Flash + Micro SD
- Penta Band LTE + 4G Hotspot
- Wi-Fi 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n
- BT 4.0 / DLNA / Miracast
- Dual Microphone
- Speaker phone
