You Can’t Buy the BlackBerry Priv Even If You Wanted To

The tale of the BlackBerry Priv has been a fascinating one. It’s the first smartphone from the Canadian company that is powered by Google Android and it’s one of the very few Android phones with a physical QWERTY keyboard, albeit a slide-out one. And even though it has had its fair share of detractors and naysayers, the BlackBerry Priv has been a runaway success.

Sort of.

The BlackBerry Priv got put up for sale officially starting early yesterday morning, and before the day was out, the flagship slider was sold out. If your objective was to buy a factory unlocked Priv from Amazon for the official price of $699.99, then you’re just going to have to wait, because you’re out of luck. You can’t buy one at that price (at least from Amazon) even if you wanted to.

To be fair, we have no idea how many BlackBerry Priv units BlackBerry had available for sale on Amazon in the first place, but sold out is sold out.

Of course, a number of third-party resellers and retailers are capitalizing on this “opportunity.” If you check out the listing on Amazon.com, you’ll find that BlackBerry doesn’t have any Priv units to sell you, but other folks are more than willing to sell you one for as much as $1,129. Oh, the wonders of capitalism.

The alternative, at least for our American readers, is that you can still get your hands on a BlackBerry Priv by way of exclusive carrier AT&T. We hear a Verizon-friendly version is also in the works. Will this be the smartphone swan song for the company once known as Research in Motion? Or does this news of being “sold out” offer a glimmer of hope?

Via Mobileburn