[Couver81]

If this has even slight success, Samsung & others will be out with sliders at half the price in a new york minute...

Bumpkin

That's a good point and something I haven't seen mentioned a lot. When you go Android you are competing with a lot of different OEMs. The Priv's form factor gives it enough differentiation but if that is copied who knows how things will go?

My main concern is that most Android vendors struggle. Even Samsung is seeing declining sales though they are still selling a lot. But LG, HTC, and Sony are all making and putting out great devices and still struggling. I think the Priv will sell better than a BB10 phone will but I'm not sure it is going to bring in huge numbers. That isn't the case with any other Android vendor and I don't see it being the case with BlackBerry either. But hopefully it does well enough that they can stay in the handset business.

[darkehawke]

Yours is the lowest estimate I have seen yet.
This would make a great contest for CrackBerry or a poll at the very least.
Whoever guesses the wins a prize.
Kind of like "The Price is Right".

Oh if i'm guessing prices that Blackberry will set, put me down for 600

They usually overprice their products :P

[srb151]

You might be surprised. I know I've seen some people on various forums who have moved away from Android phones with keyboards only because they were forced to. There have been a small handful of Android phones with keyboards released in the last 2-3 years, but they've all had mid-to-low end specs, and people weren't willing to compromise on specs. Now people will have that option, and there's a lot of excitement in that. Additionally, the Android version in the (ugh) Priv is pretty close to stock from what we've seen, and that's a selling point as well judging by how many people prefer Nexus devices or "Google Play Edition" versions of various flagships.

There always has and always will be people who prefer a keyboard. Again, if the Priv were sold at $1500, they would have some buyers still. the point is not if people will want it. Actually, BB10 handsets have been selling for years. The question is, is this or the apps, or any of the other "new killer features" will attract ENOUGH sales. The other companies believe not due to actual experience and sales numbers.

[srb151]

[QUOTE=cbvinh;11963807]You're right! They put some 1st gen hardware in there. Why didn't they stick with the plan? Did they listen to user complaints about using 2nd and 3rd gen hardware in "premium" flagships?! No way!



Keep guessing! We don't know! Obviously you don't care about security, or perceived security, because you've had four Androids and something else got you off Android. Maybe it was just the interface?



Explain how declining sales of BB10 would change things for them? Yeah, yeah, another high-end full touch will solve everything... yada, yada. The Priv only needs to sell better than BB10, over 800k units.



How BlackBerry arrived at Android:

Obviously, BlackBerry didn't think Android was the answer all along because they spent a crap load of money and resources making BB10. At this point, BB10 sales have gone down the toilet. They have only a few OS'es to switch to: Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Going iOS is out. Windows Phone might be an option, but it is struggling with the same issues BB10 has. Hmm... what's left? Oh yeah, Android, which makes up 80% of the market. BlackBerry got into this position because the "good portion" of people you're talking about isn't enough to sustain their hardware business.

As for me, I went BB10 because of the gesture interface. It makes the most sense to me. It wasn't because I didn't want Android.[/QUOTE

Actually, on the first item, you've completely missed the point of that statement. They used older hardware to reduce cost, not because they wanted to. So why do so many people think it will sell at a reasonable price?

Second, I can have multiple reasons, I'm not limited to one, and so far, NO os has everything I would like. As I said, android has LOTS of flaws. As to security, Chen himself said this phone will not be as secure as BB10. If I'm not mistaken, the two "totally secure" android phones out there don't play nice with google services either because of it.

Chen spent NOTHING on BB10 past what was already cast in stone. Marketing? Anyone? How much of that $400 million was spent on app programming and developement? No, Chen was willing to wait and see if it would sell itself, as long as it didn't cost him anything.

On the last point, again, false choices. If I were truly after enterprise, I would budged for app conversion as a service for any large customer who wanted it. Made easier tools for development, and invested outside of the box. Android was not the giant it was from day one. Find ways to keep lowering breakeven. This just scratches the surface of options that required the only things Chen wasn't willing to invest, time and some money. Microsoft is working on some of these ideas as we speak. And since I use windows pc's at work and home, I'm actually giving them a look with some of their win 10 integration.

So since BB10's ui hasn't changed, and android hasn't changed, Why is BB10 all of the sudden not working for you?

[Bbnivende]

BB10 is the best defacto forked Android available but at the end of the day, the lack of a good Android app store was a killer. Yes there are work arounds but these are not consumer friendly.

I think that BlackBerry should upgrade the Classic as well and put Android on it. Lastly, they need an all touch version of the secured slider.

[Benjamin Black]

Let's hope that it won't be rooted and then we talk.
The name by itself does not secure the phone. I am waiting for the final product hoping they know what they are doing.


Nothing like my SE.

For the last time the ******* playbook was rooted and the sky didn't fall down.

Posted via BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition

[Benjamin Black]

BB10 is the best defacto forked Android available but at the end of the day, the lack of a good Android app store was a killer. Yes there are work arounds but these are not consumer friendly.

I think that BlackBerry should upgrade the Classic as well and put Android on it. Lastly, they need an all touch version of the secured slider.

In every att store I went to after release of the passport and classic, the employees were putting the play store on people's phones for them as part of the setup process. Now I don't know enough to assume they were trained to do this but I do know that their corporate training showed them how to do it. They were also selling the devices by saying that you could install Google play and any android app on the device and they still hardly sold ****. I don't think that access to the play store is what made the most recent devices fail it is the horrible brand image, lack of sex appeal and terrible marketing that didn't target non enterprise consumers. Ya know the same thing that has always been killing blackberry.

Posted via BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition

[Prem WatsApp]

Agreed, and Chen won't.

There is no business case for continuing with BB10 devices at this stage.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I am a business case. And so are the rest of the people who want a BB10 Zlider...

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/...r4us?locale=en

Thanks! :-D

�   Ahoy, Privateers...! :-)   �

[Emaderton3]

There always has and always will be people who prefer a keyboard. Again, if the Priv were sold at $1500, they would have some buyers still. the point is not if people will want it. Actually, BB10 handsets have been selling for years. The question is, is this or the apps, or any of the other "new killer features" will attract ENOUGH sales. The other companies believe not due to actual experience and sales numbers.

I don't think it is whether people want it, but whether BlackBerry can make people think they need it. Apple is the master of this--people rip on them on these forums for coming out with new models all the time that are not always significantly better, but people wait in lines for the next iPhone when they probably don't really need it.

Posted via CB10

[the1]

That's a good point and something I haven't seen mentioned a lot. When you go Android you are competing with a lot of different OEMs. The Priv's form factor gives it enough differentiation but if that is copied who knows how things will go?

My main concern is that most Android vendors struggle. Even Samsung is seeing declining sales though they are still selling a lot. But LG, HTC, and Sony are all making and putting out great devices and still struggling. I think the Priv will sell better than a BB10 phone will but I'm not sure it is going to bring in huge numbers. That isn't the case with any other Android vendor and I don't see it being the case with BlackBerry either. But hopefully it does well enough that they can stay in the handset business.

This is all that I've been saying since the announcement was made. People are so concerned with apps and market share that they don't realize very few Android OEM see any significant profit. HTC put out one of the best (if not the best) Android phones in 2013 with the M8 and they still struggled. But at the end of the day, it is what it is. I didn't want to come back to BB for their hardware and I've never really cared about their hardware, but it was their software that sucked me back in. Dah well, at least I still got my Lumia 1520 waiting for W10M.

[Troy Tiscareno]

HTC put out one of the best (if not the best) Android phones in 2013 with the M8 and they still struggled..

I've been rooting for HTC for years, but the fact is that, despite making what is mostly a fantastic phone, HTC has either not listened to their potential customers (or reviewers), or somehow hasn't been able to resolve the one issue virtually everyone has had with the One (whether M7, M8, or M9) - the lousy camera. You cannot be competitive with a flagship smartphone without a great camera, and HTC's have been FAR from great - hell, they're barely mediocre.

I really wanted to buy the M9 this year, for its excellent build quality and fantastic speakers, but instead I'm carrying the LG G4. Why? Because the G4 has probably the best camera available in a smartphone, and as much as I am a music guy, the camera is still far more important to me than the speakers (the G4 has a single speaker on the back - decent, but no comparison to the stereo front speakers of the One).

And reviewers and customers have been hammering on HTC for THREE YEARS about the lousy One camera, and they still haven't gotten it right. That's the biggest reason for HTC's problems, and you'd think, with every single reviewer pointing out the same one major issue, that they'd have spent whatever it took to hire the world's best smartphone camera person to fix their issues. But, no - they apparently want to go bankrupt instead.

[the1]

I've been rooting for HTC for years, but the fact is that, despite making what is mostly a fantastic phone, HTC has either not listened to their potential customers (or reviewers), or somehow hasn't been able to resolve the one issue virtually everyone has had with the One (whether M7, M8, or M9) - the lousy camera. You cannot be competitive with a flagship smartphone without a great camera, and HTC's have been FAR from great - hell, they're barely mediocre.

I really wanted to buy the M9 this year, for its excellent build quality and fantastic speakers, but instead I'm carrying the LG G4. Why? Because the G4 has probably the best camera available in a smartphone, and as much as I am a music guy, the camera is still far more important to me than the speakers (the G4 has a single speaker on the back - decent, but no comparison to the stereo front speakers of the One).

And reviewers and customers have been hammering on HTC for THREE YEARS about the lousy One camera, and they still haven't gotten it right. That's the biggest reason for HTC's problems, and you'd think, with every single reviewer pointing out the same one major issue, that they'd have spent whatever it took to hire the world's best smartphone camera person to fix their issues. But, no - they apparently want to go bankrupt instead.

Once upon a time, HTC used to make great cameras (the camera on the DNA was awesome at the time), but I totally agree with you regarding HTC "fail" point, although everything else on that phone was dang near perfect (front facing stereo speakers!!!). The crazy thing about the M8 is it had the best "selfie" *cringes in real life* cam. So to most people the phone was probably 90% perfect.

Although I ran away screaming from Android last year, I still root for HTC too because they made the first Android phone and had some of the best phones earlier on.

But have you seen the M9+ "Supreme Camera Edition" with the Sony sensor; should be pretty good.

[cbvinh]

Actually, on the first item, you've completely missed the point of that statement. They used older hardware to reduce cost, not because they wanted to. So why do so many people think it will sell at a reasonable price?

Of course to reduce costs! And that was a huge complaint amongst users... that their flagships didn't have flagship parts but were charged as such. Now, they've went out and put flagship parts in and the worry is the price. They've always been pricing high (except for the Passport, which I think was reasonable on launch) and at least this time, there's some nice parts in there.

Chen spent NOTHING on BB10 past what was already cast in stone. Marketing? Anyone? How much of that $400 million was spent on app programming and developement? No, Chen was willing to wait and see if it would sell itself, as long as it didn't cost him anything.

I'll agree with that...

On the last point, again, false choices. If I were truly after enterprise, I would budged for app conversion as a service for any large customer who wanted it. Made easier tools for development, and invested outside of the box. Android was not the giant it was from day one. Find ways to keep lowering breakeven. This just scratches the surface of options that required the only things Chen wasn't willing to invest, time and some money. Microsoft is working on some of these ideas as we speak. And since I use windows pc's at work and home, I'm actually giving them a look with some of their win 10 integration.

If you've been with BlackBerry since the PlayBook, you would know that they invested in developers tools, porting common libraries, made tools to auto convert Android apps to BB10, gave developers sales guarantees, gave away free devices, developer conferences, etc. This was all done before Chen under Heins. If you compare what Microsoft is doing *today*, like making porting tools for Android and iOS, to Windows Phone, you'd realize that BlackBerry had already been there, done that. It didn't help. We'll see how Microsoft fairs.

So since BB10's ui hasn't changed, and android hasn't changed, Why is BB10 all of the sudden not working for you?

BB10 is working fine for me, however I realize that the next BlackBerry's won't necessarily be on BB10. What I hope for is a similar experience. I haven't had an Android phone, so maybe I don't know worse. I guess I picked the best right off the bat and didn't have to suffer.

As for Android, it hasn't been sitting still. It has been getting more and more gestures in its interface, just like iOS as of late.

[Troy Tiscareno]

But have you seen the M9+ "Supreme Camera Edition" with the Sony sensor; should be pretty good.

The problem is that "special editions" just **** off most of your customers who bought the original model without the special edition feature - especially something as important as the camera. They should have had that camera as a standard item at launch - would have been the difference between a profitable quarter and a big loss.

[akavbb]

For the last time the ******* playbook was rooted and the sky didn't fall down.

Posted via BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition

For the last time it wasn't their main product at the time. They had BBOS secured as a lobster.


Nothing like my SE.

[Benjamin Black]

For the last time it wasn't their main product at the time. They had BBOS secured as a lobster.


Nothing like my SE.

It was the foundation of their new OS built from the ground up to be secure. If ever a BlackBerry device being rooted was going to damage BlackBerry it would have been then.

Posted via CB10

[21stNow]

I've been rooting for HTC for years, but the fact is that, despite making what is mostly a fantastic phone, HTC has either not listened to their potential customers (or reviewers), or somehow hasn't been able to resolve the one issue virtually everyone has had with the One (whether M7, M8, or M9) - the lousy camera. You cannot be competitive with a flagship smartphone without a great camera, and HTC's have been FAR from great - hell, they're barely mediocre.

I really wanted to buy the M9 this year, for its excellent build quality and fantastic speakers, but instead I'm carrying the LG G4. Why? Because the G4 has probably the best camera available in a smartphone, and as much as I am a music guy, the camera is still far more important to me than the speakers (the G4 has a single speaker on the back - decent, but no comparison to the stereo front speakers of the One).

And reviewers and customers have been hammering on HTC for THREE YEARS about the lousy One camera, and they still haven't gotten it right. That's the biggest reason for HTC's problems, and you'd think, with every single reviewer pointing out the same one major issue, that they'd have spent whatever it took to hire the world's best smartphone camera person to fix their issues. But, no - they apparently want to go bankrupt instead.

I gave up on rooting for HTC a long time ago. You mentioned the problem that the One series had with the camera. This is symptomatic of HTC's overall inability to correct mistakes on devices for a long period of time. One of the Desire models, the Sensation then the Amaze had bad Wi-Fi antennas (not all, but a significant number of them). HTC also had a bad habit of choosing NVidia processors that didn't have the best performance in smartphones.

I used to like HTC phones due to Sense being not as intrusive as Touchwiz and the overall form factors that HTC had 2011-2012. But, I'm not going to keep buying phones that have glitches that I can't easily fix myself. I ended up back with Samsung products as secondary devices, until the 2015 Samsung devices. My thought was that Samsung had a bad GPS antenna in the Vibrant, but they fixed that mistake by the next model. It doesn't take Samsung three years to fix mistakes like it does with HTC.

As far as the Priv, I say that only time will tell. I agree that while the DROID series had its following that liked the keyboard, the numbers weren't very high in the overall market. I'm sure that the Priv can pull some of them, but with BlackBerry's marketing record, I question whether or not the Priv will sell "well".

[crackbrry fan]

In every att store I went to after release of the passport and classic, the employees were putting the play store on people's phones for them as part of the setup process. Now I don't know enough to assume they were trained to do this but I do know that their corporate training showed them how to do it. They were also selling the devices by saying that you could install Google play and any android app on the device and they still hardly sold ****. I don't think that access to the play store is what made the most recent devices fail it is the horrible brand image, lack of sex appeal and terrible marketing that didn't target non enterprise consumers. Ya know the same thing that has always been killing blackberry.

Posted via BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition

Sex appeal for a phone?? Really sad and or sick.

Posted via CB10

[TopFit]

A very good camera, enough performance to run Android buttery smooth and a price tag around 549$ will make it a hit. For a real come back they need to put millions into marketing. Really exploit that 'privacy' thing. Put Snowden in a TV spot or something.

Otherwise, this will be the last phone (maybe after some more Q5/Q10-like Android phones).

They failed to bring 'security' back to the consumer market. Now they are like every other platform and need to nail the three things mentioned above and start to advertise big time.

I am also worried about the enterprise business. Smaller and Medium sized companies care about security less and less. It's crazy what I witnessed over the past 5 years. So many BES clients left and went straight to iOS and Android without any administration. Business is done via WhatsApp. Very sad development.

I hope they will still make enough money with the big enterprises.

I for one don't care about all that. I will buy Passport SEs as long as they are available. That phone is sooooo good!!!

Posted via CB10

[domokeats09]

I don't see any reason for someone (even if they somehow like android?) to get a BB android. Just pointless from all perspectives. Even at the price point you are writing.

I can think of a dozen android users in a pretty small circle of friends who have come from BlackBerry and the only thing they truly miss is a keyboard. Priv nails that market

 PassportSQW100-1/10.3.2.2639 

[sigint99]

Android devices are loss makers for manufacturers because there are simply far too many players in the field. Look at the multitude of cheap Chinese Android handsets flooding the marketplace. People want cheap, regardless of quality. The only Android OEM making any money off Android devices is Samsung who is uniquely positioned as a vertically integrated corporation that can achieve considerable economies of scale.

BlackBerry is now fighting to stay relevant when it's painfully clear they have been irrelevant for a long time. The company has been in denial for years and won't admit that they have no real place in the modern mobile world.

[jsmith00075]

A very good camera, enough performance to run Android buttery smooth and a price tag around 549$ will make it a hit. For a real come back they need to put millions into marketing. Really exploit that 'privacy' thing. Put Snowden in a TV spot or something.

You can't put Privacy and droid in the same sentence. And placing Snowden in there is a disgrace.

[TopFit]

You can't put Privacy and droid in the same sentence. And placing Snowden in there is a disgrace.

Well, BlackBerry named their device 'Privacy' and it's running Android. If they can do it, I can do it

[jsmith00075]

Well, BlackBerry named their device 'Privacy' and it's running Android. If they can do it, I can do it

And they got no better Privacy/Security that Samsung. WoW what an achievement..

[TopFit]

And they got no better Privacy/Security that Samsung. WoW what an achievement..

Could you explain to me the technology behind Samsung Knox and tell me what kind of security you are looking for ?