BlackBerry snips Alcatel label off a midrange biz 'Droid, sells it for $299 BlackBerry today took the wraps off its first phone of the year, the cryptically named DTEK50. As rumoured, BlackBerry has based its second Android phone on a reference design from TCL, which owns Alcatel, and "security hardened" it with BlackBerry's Android. BlackBerry also confirmed that a monoblock QWERTY Android was on the …
There're no shortage of good Android hardware platforms out there that cover all my needs - my growing concern is timely updates and then anything at all after a couple of years.
Nexus used to give you that - but have recently been upping their prices and back-pedalling on their length of committed support.
Now this re-badged 'Alcatel' phone isn't what I'm personally looking for..
..but if Blackberry could get their hands on something similar to a high-end Huawei or OnePlus mid-priced phone, and chucked in say "a 5yr corporate style support contract" on it.. Well I'd be biting their hand off to hand over an extra hundred quid or so.
Received an email from BB about this today with the option to pre-order. Comes with a free mobile charger (worth £54.99!!!), but neglected to mention the price of the phone.
Under Key Features:
8MP front Camera/13MP Rear Camera
Convenience Key!!!
Can't see anyone getting excited about a mediocre camera and a button.
BB have struggled with marketing for a long time. Sad to see the product is in decline too.
@AMBxx
>Can't see anyone getting excited about a mediocre camera
I guess you are into optics and could enlighten me what makes you think that camera is mediocre ? Pixel count "IS NOT A RELIABLE MEASURE". Besides, we are talking business phone, here, not toys.... if you have used the blackberry hub, the blackberry software keyboard ...
Add to this that the phone in question has 3Gb of RAM compared to 2Gb for the Idol 4, it costs a little more, though, and I would pay that bit for the 50% increase in RAM anyway ... more RAM increases the lifetime of the device.
I'd buy a droid from Blackberry. If the camera doesn't suck. I ended up on an iPhone because the 5c camera was faster and better than equivalent priced droids. Nexus 4 cameras were slooooow, the 5s I checked out not much better. Software problem I think but such a fundamental thing to have wrong in a smartphone.
$299 for a bundle which includes the phone and a portable charger brick - probably to make up for the rather limited 2610 mAh the phone has is all a bit meh. Especially when you consider that an LG G4, a Huawei Honor 7 and Moto X Play are all options at that price.
Admittedly none has Blackberry's secret sauce in them, but the added security that BB bestows on this device is pretty much unproven.
It's a phone.
If a camera is that important to you then can get OK quality bridge cameras / digital SLRs for similar price of that phone e.g. a quick Amazon search showed Canon EOS 1100D less than 300 quid..
The phone camera is a good enough camera for random quick snapshots.
But hey, I'm of the mindset of using the appropriate device for the situation not wanting one jack of all trades device.
So for a "proper" photo I use a dedicated camera, for any old quality will do, snap something that instant just because, then the aforementioned 8 / 13 MP phone cameras would suffice.
You can do a lot with fancy electronics, CCD miniaturization etc. but basic physics means that sometimes you just need a proper sized lens for decent shots ... good luck with a tiny phone camera lens in low light if the subject is out of flash range
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