UPDATED 03:21 EDT / OCTOBER 27 2016

NEWS

BlackBerry launches its last official phone, the unimaginatively named DTEK60

A few weeks after announcing that it was no longer going to make phones, BlackBerry Ltd. launched its last official phone Wednesday, aimed squarely at corporate customers.

The unimaginatively named DTEK60 is an Android-powered device that includes a 5.5-inch QuadHD display with 2,560 x 1,440-pixel resolution powered by a Snapdragon 820 processor. Like many Android phones in 2016, versus Apple Inc.’s iPhone, the phone also includes a microSD card slot that allows for up to 2 terabytes of storage. It also has an eight-megapixel front-facing camera and a 21-megapixel rear camera.

The phone is being pitched at the enterprise end of the market by offering full Android ecosystem access coupled with high-end security along the same lines as BlackBerry’s last two Android phone releases. It also includes the BlackBerry Fingerprint Sensor, which as the name may suggest involves finger print scanning for access, and Password Keeper, which securely encrypts passwords for access websites and app services. Among other specs, the company claims its BlackBerry Intelligent Keyboard is able to learn from users and increase typing accuracy and speed, including word suggestions from three different languages.

End of an era

BlackBerry announced in September its plans to stop making phones, so this last official phone release marks the end of an era. The new phone, manufactured by TCL Corp., is impressive on paper, but it will unlikely ship any significant numbers.

BlackBerry’s downfall came in two acts, the first being that it missed the smartphone revolution led by the Apple Inc.’s iPhone, and then it decided to release phones based on its own operating system at a time when the market, at least outside the United States, was heading exclusively to Google Inc.’s Android operating system.

The DTEK60 is being sold for $499, but from reports it’s not clear how many places it will be available, and given the company’s recent history it may well be hard to find.

Image credit: BlackBerry

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