BlackBerry announces Passport phone with touch-enabled QWERTY keyboard

BlackBerry today announced their latest flagship phone – Passport at an event in Canada. While all manufacturers go for an all-touchscreen device as their flagship model, BlackBerry has decided to go with the thing they do best – a QWERTY touch-enabled keyboard. However, this is not an ordinary keyboard as it is said to be almost four times more accurate than BlackBerry 10 virtual keyboards and has a responsive touch surface like a trackpad that lets users perform many touch functions directly on the keyboard.

BlackBerry is targeting business professionals with Passport’s premium design and use of materials like forged stainless steel for durability and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the display.

Hardware-wise, the Passport features a 4.5-inch square screen with 1:1 aspect ratio (1440×1440 pixel (453 dpi) HD display and is powered by a quad-core 2.2GHz processor and 3GB RAM. The phone is also equipped with BlackBerry Natural Sound with quad mic system, 32GB internal memory, 13 megapixel camera with OIS and 3450mAh battery.

On the software side, the Passport runs BlackBerry 10 OS 10.3 out of the box and supports BlackBerry World and Amazon Appstore, BlackBerry Blend and BlackBerry Assistant.