BlackBerry releases Android Smartphone

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. BlackBerry’s oftenrumored—and leaked—Android device, the BlackBerry Priv, is now available. It’s the company’s first smartphone to run an operating system outside of its proprietary software. Android is designed and developed by Google.

As “Armenpress” reports, referring to Fortune, the Priv arrives at a time when Android manufacturers are cutting back on the amount of software customizations, with most vendors touting a “vanilla” or “pure” Android experience on their latest devices. Moving away from a heavily customized version of Android helps eliminate performance issues, and shortens the amount of time it takes to implement software updates released by Google.

BlackBerry didn’t take the same approach with the Priv, instead opting to tailor the Android experience to mimic the overall feature set found in BlackBerry 10. As a result, the Priv is often slowed down when it’s tasked with performing tasks specific to BlackBerry’s customizations, along with running the core Android OS.