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UPDATE: BlackBerry Passport is officially launched in Malaysia. Priced at RM2,399 and available first on Celcom.
BlackBerry has officially announced the Passport, its fresh take on the ultimate business device. Departing from its typical half screen, half QWERTY keyboard design, the new Passport aims to give a bigger picture with a wider form factor.
The front 4.5″ display pushes a high resolution 1440×1440 pixels which gives excellent clarity at 453 ppi (pixels per inch). To withstand day to day abuses, the screen is further toughen with Gorilla Glass 3.
As the display dominates almost 3/4 of the front, the QWERTY keyboard is more compact and it also doubles up as a touch pad. So you can scroll, flick and slide over its tactile keys.
Powering the passport is a 2.2GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 800 that’s mated to 3GB of RAM. 32GB storage is provided on-board and there’s a microSD slot which accepts up to 128GB cards.
For imaging, there’s a 13MP f/2.0 BSI camera with 5-element lens and it is further enhanced with Optical Image Stabilisation. There’s no 4K video recording but it is capable of shooting Full HD 1080p videos at 60fps. Meanwhile over at the front, there’s a 2MP front facing camera which is capable of recording 720p HD videos.
Keeping the Passport going is a large non-removable 3,450mAh capacity battery that claims to last up to 30 hours of mixed use. For audio, it also comes with Natural Sound for better clarity and it also gets quad mics for better audio pick up.
Out of the box, it runs on the latest BlackBerry 10.3 that comes with its new voice Assistant. Also introduced is its new BlackBerry Blend that allows you to work seamlessly across multiple platforms. So regardless which machine you’re on, you’ll always stay connected with your BBM, messages, emails and work files.
For more information, visit BlackBerry Passport product page. In case you didn’t know, the Passport will be launched in Malaysia tomorrow.
