Blackberry reached an agreement with Amazon to have the Amazon Appstore bundled on future phones and will also be included in the 10.3 update. The first phone to have the new store featured on it in an official launch will be the Blackberry Passport this September.
Passport was previously known as ‘Windermere‘, the often-leaked QWERTY device will sport a 4.5-inch 1440×1440 pixel display and what is believed to be a touch-sensitive keyboard panel for easier autocorrection. Underneath the hood will be a quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB RAM, a 13MP camera, 2MP front-facing camera, and a non-removable 3450 mAh battery.
The Passport has a 1:1 aspect ratio and is as square as a Vine video or Instagram photo. It is designed to be business tool, but may have some problems running apps downloaded from Amazon due to its totally square screen, similar to some of the problems facing the Q5 and Q10.
Blackberry is realizes that many of their core customers need a phone with a full QWERTY keyboard and the Blackberry Classic and Blackberry Passport will all feature one. The Waterloo based company took a gambit with appealing to the masses with the Z10 and Z5, and failed. They are intending on turning the company around by having Foxconn design and make the hardware, saving Blackberry money.
Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.