The Android-Powered BlackBerry Priv will be Available by Year’s End

Consider yourself privy to this information: BlackBerry’s much-talked about (mainly by BlackBerry) physical keyboard-equipped Android smartphone is officially called the Priv and it will be available for purchase late this year.

The name was confirmed by CEO John Chen, who claims that the Priv combines the best BlackBerry has to offer in terms of security and privacy with all that Android has to offer in terms of software. As a long time fan of both, it seems like a winning combination to me.

BlackBerry is calling the phone their “flagship slider device” in reference to the phones slide-out keyboard. There’s still a lot that we don’t about the phone, but according to Chen we’ll know a lot more in the “coming weeks.” Chen also made sure to clarify that they’re not abandoing their BlackBerry 10 operating system, which will be updated to 10.3.3 in March 2016.

I’m really curious to see how the Priv does and I’m hoping that it does well. I cut my smartphone teeth with BlackBerry and as much as I love the current slate of Samsung phones, I not-so-secretly pine for a phyiscal keyboard. Depending on how BlackBerry’s Android phones fare, they could make a fairly triumphant return.