BlackBerry Teases Dual-Curved Smartphone with All-Touch Display, Slide-Out Keyboard
BlackBerry unveiled a touch screen and keyboard slider smartphone Tuesday at the 2015 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
The company tweeted, "What a Surprise! Ron just pulled out a dual-curved, all-touch display with a Keyboard -- yes a slider device! #MWC15"
BlackBerry's tweet refers to Ron Louks, BlackBerry president of devices and emerging solutions, who teased the smartphone with a curved display similar to the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. It also features a slide-out keyboard.
The device, currently nameless, has been nicknamed "the slider" by CEO John Chen. In addition to the slider, Chen told the Mobile World Congress audience the company will release a second Porsche edition BlackBerry and another keyboard mobile phone.
Last year the company unveiled four devices: a low-cost BlackBerry Z3, a Porsche edition BlackBerry, the Passport and the BlackBerry Classic.
The company also debuted its new touchscreen smartphone BlackBerry Leap at the Mobile World Congress. The phone features the BlackBerry 10 OS operating system, 16GB of storage and 25 hours of battery life. It has a 5-inch screen with 1,280x720-pixel HD touch display boasting 293 pixels per inch. An 8-megapixel camera offers 1080p HD video recording.
The Leap is aimed at the "young career builder, someone looking to make a difference," said Louks.
No release date for the BlackBerry Leap has been given.
Although BlackBerry has returned to a touchscreen smartphone with its Leap model, Chen said the company will still focus primarily on keyboard products.
BlackBerry's hold on the smartphone market is slipping. Its operating system market share fell to 0.4 percent in 2014 from 1.9 percent a year before, according to IDC. Meanwhile, Android controlled more than 80 percent of the market. IDC predicts the company's market share will fall to 0.3 percent in 2018. For that reason, BlackBerry is switching gears to provide more than smartphones. The company announced at Mobile World Congress it plans to roll out more BlackBerry apps and services to the Android and iPhone cell phones. It also plans to strengthen its partnership with Samsung.
The company is ahead of schedule on its two-year turnaround plan, taking a profit in the last quarter.
"The company's financials are stabilizing," Chen said.
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