back to article ‘Penultimate’ BlackBerry seen on 'do not publish' page as fire sale begins

Could BlackBerry be any less involved in the phone business that it is today? A year ago it designed its own phones that ran its own, home-grown platform. Today it rebadges other people’s designs and the phones run Android. Actually, yes, it could – see below for details*. This week BlackBerry accidentally revealed details of …

  1. J. R. Hartley

    Calm down, Chandler.

  2. jzl

    BlackBerry?

    They still going then?

  3. Jess

    Given up with BlackBerry now.

    If they had gone the route of sticking BB10 on cheap Chinese hardware I'd have stuck with them, but being forced to Android, then I'm going to stick to cheap Tablet phones.

    1. Hollerithevo

      Re: Given up with BlackBerry now.

      Yes, I am clinging for dear life to my Blackberry Bold, because i don't want an android phone. When the Bold dies, I dunno. Maybe an IPhone. Maybe nothing.

  4. James 51

    There is a sale on shop blackberry at the moment. A Passport SE for less than £300 and a Priv for £400. Just bought a S6, wished I had waited a week (even if I do like the (gimmicky) VR).

  5. Hans 1

    Looks quite cool, that thing, maybe my next phone ... i dropped my z30 on the balcony yesterday, had a little too much rosé wine, I guess, it now has a slightly cracked screen ... need a replacement soon ... this maybe this one ...

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Gravity's a bitch when your drunk isn't it?

      1. Robert Moore

        Grammar is a bitch when you're drunk too. :)

        1. wolfetone Silver badge
          Headmaster

          "Grammar is a bitch when you're drunk too. :)"

          It's a fair cop.

    2. Keith Langmead

      As a former z30 owner I can definitely recommend the Priv. I do wish it has BB10 in many ways (though I'd miss the app support), but if I have to put up with Android at least the Priv manages to hide the worst of it.

  6. IHateWearingATie
    Unhappy

    Probably the right approach, but its a sad decline in a once great company :(

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Innovation is needed, not more phablets !

    You know what would be innovative ?

    A decent phone that wasn't a 5"+ phablet.

    1. Paul

      Re: Innovation is needed, not more phablets !

      yes, 5" is way too small for a pocket computer that can occasionally be a phone.

  8. Orwell

    Blackberry security?

    It's Android isn't it? - Google harvesting everything you do.

    Sad to see the demise of another great phone manufacturer.

  9. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    The riots..

    It seemed to me that the turning point for Blackberry (in the UK at least) was the riots in 2011. Until then, they were not only the tool of choice for a lot of business people, but they were the the phone that the trendy people had. They were also the phone of choice for a lot of my friends who wanted a secure email and messaging system with push email.

    Then, the riots happened. Thousands of chavs rioted through the streets of (mainly) London, and were often seen on TV sending messages through BBM. Can't have done their professional image much good.

    Hell, I know someone who works for TFL and used to almost live on his blackberry as a result. Now, TFL are pushing their thousands of staff onto other phone OSes (such as Android and iOS).

    1. ciderbuddy

      Re: The riots..

      No, it was much earlier. I worked for O2 a few years ago and they always had a good working relationship with RIM(they are neighbours in Slough I believe).

      BBM had already been popularised when networks started offering Blackberries on prepay - we sold a lot of cheap blackberry curves that year. The demographic was almost entirely teenage girls and I think at that time if RIM had made BBM for other platforms BB10 might have been a contender.

  10. Andy Miller

    A "convenience key" ? Can it unlock public toilets? That would be the first innovative feature I've seen on a smartphone for some years.

  11. GrumpyOldMan

    My Z10 still going strong from launch 4 years ago. Don't like Android, WinPhone - same as W10 - not even going to do there. So going for a Passport. Just for kicks. BB10 is a great OS - just because they have a small (niche) market share and crap advertising from vendors - not even put on display in fone shops (so in what way does that give customers a choice?) does not mean is is a bad phone.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      My Z10 is also still going strong - it was one of the first when the new handset was released.

      However recently when I realised that Snap had stopped working, and a number of apps I use had gone Android-only, I decided to try the pre-order offer of the reasonably priced DTEK-50.

      My son is now using the Z10 as his first phone :-) while I get used to Android, which I'm happy to say has come along quite a lot since my first experiences of it on my wife's Samsung. First impressions of the DTEK-50, I'd say 'not bad' ... although the handset gets very very hot when my smallest runs Pokemon GO on it, and the battery indicator almost drops as you watch it.

      Dissapointingly, now that I'm actively using Android, I discover exactly what lengths Google are going to to make sure your physical location is tracked and reported to Google and App vendors at all times. I find that rather creepy as only two of my apps (one of which is TomTom!) have any business at all knowing my physical location.

      I have started noticing the odd advertising-based notification pop up every so often, which I am sure is related to this. NOT HAPPY. "Minority Report" here we come...

  12. OrinokoMatt
    Megaphone

    Whilst BB might still produce the odd device they are now a SOFTWARE company and they are doing rather well at it.

    BES12 and its accompanying products (Watchdox/Good etc. etc.) have just been rated as a 'Leader' by Gartner in the mobile space:

    https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-390THFL&ct=160608

    Those who keep saying "BlackBerry are dead", give it a rest and try and do some reading beyond BGR.

  13. John 104

    Wrong

    Having outsourced almost everything, the next logical step for BlackBerry would be to grant a full time “BlackBerry” license to a third party

    The next step will be selling off the IP and closing the doors. This company is so irrelevant any more why do they even bother? A qwerty phone? really? Who uses this stuff?

    1. Jeffrey Nonken

      Re: Wrong

      "A qwerty phone? really? Who uses this stuff?"

      Ahhh. Real keyboards. I miss my old SKII. *sigh*

      Using Swype these days, but nothing is perfect.

      1. John Sanders
        Meh

        Re: Wrong

        >> "A qwerty phone? really? Who uses this stuff?"

        Me if blackberry made anything affordable.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wrong

      I hate to break it to you but the phone business is only a small part of what Blackberry does...In fact they are now just rolling out a new tracking system for the trucking industry in North America:

      http://www.stockhouse.com/news/press-releases/2016/09/22/blackberry-radar-hits-the-road-with-caravan-transport-group

      even if the phone business is dead, they are quite strong in many other areas....many car manufacturers are using their software behind the scenes to power their audio/infotainment systems as well - not to mention nuclear plants, cars, plain - even submarines all use their OS (QNX/BB10)....

    3. Ian Entwistle

      Re: Wrong

      *waves* (from reply posted on his blackberry passport hardware keyboard whilst I can still see the whole of the Web page I'm replying to ...)

    4. MrDamage Silver badge

      Re: Wrong

      > "A qwerty phone? really? Who uses this stuff?"

      Someone who does does lot of email on the go. The tactile response of the qwerty keyboard allows me to type quicker, and more accurately, than with an onscreen keyboard.

      Not to mention you aren't dragging your grotty fingers across the screen, so you can actually use it without having to clean it every second email.

      1. Sir Cumference

        Re: Wrong

        Some people need a physical keyboard. I don't get on with an on-screen one..

    5. Down not across

      Re: Wrong

      The next step will be selling off the IP and closing the doors. This company is so irrelevant any more why do they even bother? A qwerty phone? really? Who uses this stuff?

      Admittedly been quite some time since I last had a closer look, but QNX is (or at least used to be) rather good real-time OS which should attract fair bit of business.

      Going the rebrand route instead of manufacturing the hardware is not necessarily daft, however they seem to have decided that continuing using the software stack on top of QNX was too costly (and/or too much work) and decided to take the "easy route" of bulding on top of Android losing most of what differentiated them in the market.

      Who uses QWERTY phone? Fair number of people do (or would if suitable phone was available).

      I'd love to get a modern version of my Communicator 9500 (RA-2) with high res screen, modern high-capacity (non exploding, if possible) battery.

    6. RAMChYLD
      Boffin

      Re: Wrong

      > A qwerty phone? really? Who uses this stuff?

      I do -.-

      I don't trust screen keyboards. They're wonky, and at one point I've accidentally sent a weird gif that the keyboard for some reason saved in it's emoji list (I was using the SwiftKey keyboard) to a friend on Facebook Messenger because my finger slipped.

      I have both a Blackberry Passport and a Blackberry Priv. Before this I had a Q5 which died an untimely death a few months ago when it accidentally slipped out of my pants and fell into a bucket of water in the office loo. Have been a Blackberry user since Microsoft bought up Nokia because there was no upgrade path for N97 and N900 users.

      And the reason I chose the Priv? The qwerty keyboard, and the 28-band world-multi LTE radio. And that it runs android, meaning I have access to all the same apps I bought for my Sony Xperia tablet. The Passport was good, but ultimately the loss of Facebook features and BB10 native Whatsapp is a deal breaker. Sure, I've hacked the Google store back in there, but some apps just refuse to run on it for one reason or another.

  14. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    "1440x2560 Quad HD display"

    Ah yes, now when can we have a reasonably priced laptop with similar resolution? You know in the £400-500 range.

  15. Paul

    Snapdragon 820 is old hat

    the Snapdragon 820 is old hat now, the 821 is what the cool kids run these days.

  16. WatAWorld

    Sheesh, Apple has done this for years

    Sheesh, Apple has done this for years and has had great success for most of those years.

    It makes sense for Blackberry to emulate their business model.

  17. Tom Paine

    +1 for an elderly Z10 still going strong. I bust the screen a year ago, just as my contract was coming up, and EE dumped the worst piece-of-crap Samsung device imaginable on me. Horribly slippery (unlikely the nice rubberised back of the Z10), *just* slightly too big to fit in my hand and allow one-thumb typing, and the apps - my god! what a crock! the Contacts only allowed one number per contact FFS. (Android fanboy told me "oh, yes, well *obviously* you need to jailbreak it and install an entirely new s/w stack to make it usable" -- WTAF??)

    In the end I had a massive sense of humour failure in a pub toilet (yes, drink had been taken) and deliberately smashed it beyond all hope of repair by repeatedly hurling it against a hard tiled floor -- and my GOD it felt good. Bought a replacement screen for the Z10 for £12 online, found a walk-through on YouTube and replaced it myself. God knows what I'll do when it finally dies though - I'm one of those weirdos who regards Apple as pure evil, and my experience of Android makes me very reluctant to go back there again. (Srsly, how do people ever use it? It was shockingly bad, almost unusable.

    Oh yeah, and screw EE too.

  18. JLV

    Ex Z10, now a using a Classic, with keyboard. Love it.

    I don't like Android much - tried a Nexus 5 for a year - so I may go back to iPhone :( when this one bites the dust.

    I don't need apps much - just good enough phone and sms. Email, browser. Preferably a keyboard. And _good_ batteries. <$700. And an audio jack :)

    I might have bothered trying WinPhone once, not nowadays though.

    Too bad - BB10 is very nice except for apps. Fast, battery friendly, stable, nice discoverable UI. But they were just too late to the party. Oh, and pretty lame online knowledge bases to look up answers from - so be ready for that if you do pick up a bargain - which I'd still recommend otherwise long as you make sure it fits your needs.

    Duopoly now :(

  19. NeilPost Silver badge

    Should have happened years ago

    A Blackberry 'App' for Android, IOS and WinPhone should have happened years ago.

    Before the debacle with Playbook, long drawn out Blackberryisation of QNX to BBX/BB10 and the sadly lacklustre BB10 phones that were probably 2 years too late of of no interest past core markets when they managed to limp out.

    Ironically the future of Blackberry is 'Good Mobile Messaging' they somehow managed to acquire, and mobile device management of the BBServer which is their own.

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