The BlackBerry Classic, arguably the best handset in the world for typing-intensive purposes like managing email and text messages, will be launched in India at a price of Rs 31,999 or thereabouts by mid January, according to a distributor.
The phone will replace the BlackBerry Q10, which is both smaller and cheaper. Unlike all other BlackBerry phones in India except the Passport (price Rs 49,999), the BlackBerry Classic will support LTE connectivity.
However, the LTE connectivity on this phone does not include the widely deployed 2300 MHz band in India, but does support the 1800 MHz band that is also being equally widely deployed.
The Classic is a throwback to the old, solid keyboard look that BlackBerry was known for. However, the phone is also much bigger than the other similar phones from the Canadian company.
For example, the BlackBerry Classic has a 27.23% bigger display than the Q10. Of course, it is not the phone with the biggest display from the Canadian company. That distinction goes to the much more expensive Passport, which has a 65.5% bigger display than the Classic.
The Classic continues with the 0.5 megapixel display, which has one-fourth the number of dots that a full HD display has.
Still, the BlackBerry Classic is likely to be appreciated by those who like the feel and response of a physical keypad. Not only does the 3.5-inch touch display give more viewing space, it also makes the keypad, attached at the bottom, larger as the overall size of the device has now gone up.
The phone comes with a Snapdragon 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM that are more than enough to handle the tasks that the phone is expected to handle.
Internal memory is 16 GB and the operating system is BB OS 10.3.
PROS
The Pros of the phone are primarily around the keyboard. Not only does the handset bring you back the famous keypad, but it is also larger, and reputedly better than all other keypads so far found on the company’s handsets.
CONS
The downsides, however, are several, though it shouldn’t deter the BlackBerry fan. Primarily, the downsides have to do with the smaller display and the relatively less popular operating system.
While the operating system does technically support Android apps, it does not support Google Play services — a kind of master, admin program used increasingly by more and more apps like Youtube.
In addition, since there’s no Google Play appstore, you have to use less popular app stores like those of Amazon. Some of the third party app stores, including that of Amazon, have slightly older versions of some key apps.
That said, if the primary aim of the device is to deal with text and email, the BlackBerry Classic is one of the best devices out there right now. But if the objective is also to watch movies and videos, perhaps it would be better to consider a device with an on-screen keyboard and a larger display.
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BLACKBERRY CLASSIC SPECIFICATIONS
