BlackBerry Priv Android Smartphone India Launch Set for January 28

BlackBerry has sent invites for the India launch of its first Android smartphone - the BlackBerry Priv. The launch is scheduled for 11am on January 28, and is set to take place in New Delhi.

To recall, after innumerable leaks and rumours about its first Android smartphone, Canadian mobile company BlackBerry last September confirmed the Priv would be launched in 2015. After going up for pre-orders in October, the smartphone finally went on sale in the US and Canada in November last year.

The BlackBerry Priv was priced at $699 in the US, which today translates to roughly Rs. 47,300. We can expect BlackBerry to bring the smartphone to the country with a small premium over the converted dollar price.

To recall, the Android 5.1.1 Lollipop-based BlackBerry Priv features a 5.4-inch QHD (1440x2560 pixels) Amoled display and sports a pixel density of 540ppi. It also bears support for a glove mode. Under the hood, it is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 hexa-core processor (1.8GHz dual-core Cortex-A57, and 1.44GHz quad-core Cortex-A53) clubbed with 3GB of RAM and Adreno 418 GPU.

Bearing 32GB of built-in storage, the BlackBerry also bears a hot-swappable microSD expansion slot (up to 2TB). An 18-megapixel rear camera is at the rear with optical image stabilisation, PDAF, dual-LED flash, and 4K video recording. A 2-megapixel front-camera is also on board, and offers HD video recording.

As for connectivity options, the BlackBerry Priv support 4G LTE (with the US variant only showing support for India's FDD-LTE Band 3), Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with Direct functionality, Bluetooth 4.1, 3.5mm audio jack, Micro-USB, NFC, and GPS/ A-GPS. The smartphone bears an accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, time of flight (ToF) sensor, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, altimeter, and activity monitor. A massive 3410mAh battery backs the device, rated to deliver up to 22.5 hours of 'mixed usage'