Almost all the companies including Nokia had adopted Android OS once in their smartphones. The exclusions are BlackBerry and Apple (which would never adopt Android). Now, according to recent reports from Reuters, BlackBerry that was once a dominant smartphone player in the global arena is in plans to make use of Android as its primary operating system on an upcoming device. The reason is BB10 is yet to receive a great response from the customers.
As per a Reuters report, it remains unknown if BlackBerry will completely ditch the BB10 OS for Android, but right now, the vendor is building a smartphone based on Android. The manufacturer is claimed to be working on a slider form factor Android smartphone. The report reveals that this mystery device is the same phone that BlackBerry showcased at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year with dual-curved display.
While not much information about this upcoming BlackBerry Android smartphone is known, the Twitter bound retired leakster @evleaks has revealed a render of the BlackBerry Venice smartphone featuring a slide-out keyboard. It is clear that this device will be launched on AT&T, but it is not known if the device will be exclusive to AT&T.
The render leaked by @evleaks shows the exactly same device BlackBerry showcased at the MWC. The notable stuffs from the render is that the BlackBerry Venice will be running on near-to-pure-version of Android and that the smartphone will arrive with a dual curved display as in the Galaxy S6 Edge and a full physical QWERTY keyboard, with front-facing speakers. The upcoming Android based smartphone is also likely to include the patented features that are a part of the build.
Though BlackBerry had denied to comment on this rumour about making an Android smartphone, a recent WHOIS record has revealed that the company had registered two new domains, AndroidSecured.com and AndroidSecured.net on July 7th under BlackBerry Limited. We aren't really sure what BlackBerry is up to or what is the connection between the domains and the Venice.
Whatever it is, it has been quite sometime since we came across an Android based smartphone with full QWERTY keyboard. Eventually, there are chances for this smartphone (if real) to become a massive hit among users.