BlackBerry ‘Ontario’ – a high-end quad-core smartphone emerged online
BlackBerry is working on a flagship device for the US market
A new BlackBerry phone has just been discovered at the Geekbench benchmark and we have a flagship model, according to the leaked specs. John Chen said earlier that his company is working on a high-end device for the US market and now the benchmark listing confirms that the phone is real. Dubbed ‘Ontario’, it has a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor ticking over at 2.15 GHz and backed by 2 GB of RAM. The phone has also BlackBerry OS 10.3.0.92 on board.
The troubled Canadian giant struck a deal with Foxconn, a contract manufacturer, who will produce some of the new BlackBerry models for the period of 5 years. With Foxconn design and manufacturing capabilities, Blackberry could decrease its operating expenses and release new low-cost models on the emerging markets, which in turn could return the company into profitability.
One of the new devices under development is said to come without a physical keyboard, even though Chen said earlier that BlackBerry was going back to the roots and most of the new phones would feature QWERTY keyboards instead of virtual. Jakarta, the first model manufactured by Foxconn, is expected to arrive in March or April in Indonesia as the company’s new strategy is to explore the emerging markets with huge potential.
“BlackBerry models will predominantly be handsets that offer a physical QWERTY keyboard”, said Chen. BlackBerry’s keyboards are iconic and very important for the company’s future, adds the CEO. Another key area will be the enterprise and business market, where Blackberry had a significant share a few years ago. According to the CEO, most of the businessmen prefer to type using physical keyboards rather than virtual and the first model for the US could be ‘Ontario’, the quad-core phone just spotted at the Geekbench benchmark.
[Source: Crackberry]
