BlackBerry Classic is now official. Its new device with a familiar BlackBerry Bold design

There’s a saying, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. After introducing a series of BlackBerry 10 OS devices, the enterprise centric smart phone maker has finally announced its BlackBerry Classic. This is their latest model with a touch of their BlackBerry Bold of old. At first glance, it retains a familiar QWERTY keyboard that most business execs would be familiar with, along with a trackpad and a set of dedicated physical keys underneath the screen.

BlackBerry is positioning this as the replacement of its former BlackBerry Bold 9900, its last flagship model before making the switch to BlackBerry 10 platform. The new Classic claims to offer 60% more display real estate, 50% more battery life and 3X faster web browser performance over the previous Bold 9900.

At the front, it gets a 3.5″ 720×720 display that’s toughen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Underneath its stainless steel frame, the Classic is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage that’s similar with its BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry Q10.

There’s a microSD slot accepting up to 128GB capacity and they have included a 8MP + 2MP camera combination as well. Keeping the lights on is a non-removable 2,515mAh battery which is 415mAh more than the BlackBerry Q10. Overall Classic is slightly thinner (10.2mm vs 10.4mm) but it is heavier (177g vs 139g) the Q10. Out of the box, it runs on the latest BlackBerry 10.3 OS which supports installation of Android apps.

The Classic is sold at US$449 (about RM1,558) in the US and we expect it to be available soon in Malaysia as it has already passed (model number: SQC100-1) SIRIM certification. For more info, you can check out BlackBerry’s Classic product page.

If you are still sticking to your old BlackBerry, is this new classic design enough for you to make the switch? Let us know in the comments below.