BlackBerry CEO struggles with the new Android-running Priv (Venice) in a hands-on video

Once a brand identifies itself and sets habits, they’re often hard to get rid of. Especially so when John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry tried his hand at the demo-unit of the new BlackBerry Priv; the first Android running device from the manufacturer. Well it’s safe to say that Mr. Chen uses a BlackBerry (10) himself, seeing he tried to swipe up in the video you’ll see below.

Providing an exclusive hands-on, the CEO talked about how the brand identifies to give its customers privacy, security and privilege, while handling the device – that wasn’t set up yet.

The short time with the device was spent more on how the company has decided to give other OS’ a go, since they can’t keep up with competitors’ app ecosystem. He also gave us a look at the slider in action, mentioning that the QWERTY keyboard will have capacitive keys.

Recapping the rumoured specs, the Priv runs a 6-core Snapdragon 808 processor and 3GB of RAM under the hood. Curved in nature (a first for BlackBerry) the 5.5-inch screen is purported to display in Quad HD resolution.

For its camera, it’ll be sporting an 18-megapixel rear shutter with dual-LED flash, while the front gets a 5-megapixel camera. As you saw on the video, the Priv runs Android; apparently 5.0 but it’ll also have some of the BlackBerry exclusive apps like BlackBerry Hub.

A stumble for sure, perhaps BlackBerry could’ve asked their top technology guy to handle the preview of the device instead. Hopefully they’ll buck up during their launch presentation, or at least get the demo unit set up properly – as it is estimated to launch around November.

If you’re a BlackBerry user, tell us what you think about the notion of switching over to Android in the comments below.

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