BlackBerry Passport launch window for South Africa

BlackBerry has announced that its new flagship smartphone, the BlackBerry Passport, will be available in South Africa from early November 2014.

Previously, the company had only said that the Passport would launch locally “before the end of the year.”

The device was officially unveiled and launched during a global event on 24 September 2014, where BlackBerry announced that the Passport was aimed at the “power professional”.

Featuring an unusual design with a large (4.5-inch) square display and 3-row, 29-key hardware keyboard, the BlackBerry Passport also comes with the latest version of BlackBerry’s mobile operating system, BlackBerry 10 OS 10.3.

In addition to introducing a number of features to support the Passport’s physical design, BlackBerry 10.3 also includes a voice assistant much like iOS’s Siri, Android’s Google Now, and Windows Phone’s Cortana.

BlackBerry 10.3 also adds support for the Passport’s touch-sensitive keyboard, which lets the user perform gestures on the keyboard to minimise reaching up to the touchscreen while typing.

Other features of the Passport noted by BlackBerry is support for the exFAT file system on its microSD cards, a 13 megapixel camera, 2.2GHz quad-core processor, 3GB RAM, and a 3,450mAh battery.

The table below summarises the key specifications.

Local retail prices for the BlackBerry Passport are not yet available, but it will be introduced internationally at the following suggested retail prices, BlackBerry said:

• Canada – $699 (CAD)
• France – €649
• Germany – €649
• UK – £529
• USA – $599

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