On September of last year, the once lauded handset manufacturer, BlackBerry Limited, officially confirmed that it will no longer be building its own mobile devices, and would now settle with outsourcing all of its internal hardware efforts towards third-party phone makers like China's TCL Corporation.

TCL acquires BlackBerry

According to TheNextWeb, The Canadian-based tech company eventually announced that it had finalized its partnership with TCL last month, handing over the global rights to the BlackBerry name to the Chinese manufacturer. Right now, it seems TCL isn't wasting any time towards putting the brand to use.

BlackBerry Mercury to be released soon

Today, TCL President Steve Cistulli teased on a brief preview of the long-speculated and long-awaited BlackBerry Mercury device. Scheduled to officially launch at the upcoming CES convention, the handset will be sporting a physical keyboard, and will be entirely designed, built and overseen by the Chinese tech corporation.

Rumors say that the upcoming keyboard-equipped Mercury phone will pack a 4-inch display, featuring an unusual 1620×1080 resolution to go along with a pixel density of 420 ppi. Among other things, the smartphone is also expected to feature a Snapdragon processor, 3GB worth of RAM, as well as 32GB of internal storage.

According to Express UK, The Mercury won't be the first BlackBerry device that TCL put together. The Alcatel-maker has previously developed and designed the Android-powered DTEK50 and DTEK60, the former model which closely resembled that of the Alcatel Idol 4.

Will TCL revive BlackBerry?

Over the last few years, the declining BlackBerry brand has found salvation through its burgeoning software business, which boasts recurring customers, a solid growth and spectacular profit margin of up to 30 percent.

With TCL officially taking over the hardware production for BlackBerry, the Canadian company has finally completed its transition into a fully-fledged software-making firm.

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