The BlackBerry Motion has been unveiled in Dubai
today. Built by China's TCL under its license with BlackBerry, the Motion is an
"all touch" model that carries the largest battery ever used to power
a 'Berry branded handset (4000 mAh). It also is the first BlackBerry branded
phone to feature an IP certification rating. At IP67, the Motion can be
submerged in up to 3.3 feet for as long as 30-minutes and emerge unscathed.
Still, due to the corrosive nature of salt, we wouldn't want to put the Motion
in the ocean.
The new BlackBerry Mobile device comes with a
5.5-inch Premium Anti-Scratch screen with a 1080 x 1920 resolution (FHD). While
we don't have any word on which chip is powering the phone, earlier rumors
called for the Snapdragon 625 SoC to be found under the hood. That means the
Motion is equipped with an octa-core CPU and the Adreno 506 GPU. 4GB of RAM is
inside. The battery will charge to 50% in just 40-minutes thanks to Quick
Charge 3.0, and a fingerprint scanner is embedded in the home button. The handset
is built with a hardened aluminum frame with soft touch material on back.
Android 7.1 Nougat is pre-installed, and the model will receive an update to
Android 8.0 (Oreo) in 2018.
New to BlackBerry branded handsets with the release
of the Motion is the Locker. Users will be able to store documents and photos
in an internal storage area that will require the user's PIN code or
fingerprint to access. Locker Mode will send pictures to the internal storage
area instead of the cloud. Also, the Convenience Key now comes with "four
customizable profiles for Home, Car, Office and User. These can be triggered by
"a home WiFi network, in-car Bluetooth, meetings that are synced to
BlackBerry Hub or apps that are most commonly used."
The BlackBerry Motion will launch in the UAE and
Saudi Arabia this month with distribution widening to "select global
markets" later this month. The phone is priced at Dh1,699 in the UAE. That
is equivalent to US$ 463. In Saudi Arabia, the Motion can be purchased for
1,699 Riyal.
