Since last year, there have been reports that BlackBerry has been working on three new smartphones for 2018. BlackBerry itself had confirmed that they would be launching two new smartphone with QWERTY keypads. In February codenames of these devices popped up online. The three handsets were allegedly codenamed Uni, Athena and Luna. Today, we’re treated with a first look of the Blackberry Athena.
As can be seen in the images, the handset is quite identical to the BlackBerry KEYone minus the curved screen. Also, it has a rectangular slab design. The bottom is dominated by the QWERTY keypad which we presume will be touch-sensitive like the KEYone. There’s a BlackBerry logo on the space-bar which tells us that it might harbour a fingerprint scanner. The rear comes with the signature rugged texture we’re so familiar with on BlackBerry devices. It also has a dual camera setup placed horizontally.
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Recent reports have suggested that the handset will feature the Snapdragon 660. As for RAM and storage, there are murmurs of an 8GB + 64GB combo as well as a 6GB variant. None of this is official yet. However, we’re sure all three phones should run Android Oreo out of the box. The BlackBerry Uni is also expected to feature the same design. But, we’re yet to see any leaked images of the said device. As for Luna, there isn’t much information regarding the device.