AT&T to sell Blackberry Passport for $200 and Classic for $50 on contract, starting Feb. 20th
BlackBerry's new phones finally come to a US carrier this month — AT&T to sell the Passport and Classic starting on February 20th — BlackBerry's latest devices …
Context & Ripple Effects
BlackBerry's Classic launched in December and the company followed in January by announcing a redesigned Passport built specifically for AT&T, so this carrier deal is the payoff of a deliberate US retail push rather than an accident of inventory.
The pricing is aggressive by BlackBerry standards — $200 for the Passport and just $50 for the Classic on contract — and it lands days before Verizon puts the Classic on its own network, meaning both major carriers will be carrying the same QWERTY lineup within a week.
First-order effects
- US buyers get their first carrier-sold access to the Passport and Classic on February 20th, with AT&T's $50 Classic undercutting the $100-with-rebate deal Verizon announces for February 26th.
- AT&T becomes the launch carrier for the redesigned Passport that BlackBerry announced for it in January, giving the device a distribution channel it lacked as an unlocked-only product.
Second-order effects
- Verizon's matching Classic launch forces a direct price comparison between the two carriers on identical hardware, turning BlackBerry's comeback bid into a contract-pricing battleground.
- Cheap on-contract pricing signals carriers are willing to subsidize BlackBerry's niche devices to differentiate their lineups, which sets up shelf space for the Android-based Priv whose US preorders open later that year exclusively through AT&T and T-Mobile.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — subsidized hardware launches followed within months by an Android device from the same maker — points toward BlackBerry's hardware business migrating onto Android while retaining the keyboard identity, with carrier relationships like AT&T's determining which devices reach US shelves at all.
The trend: BlackBerry's hardware strategy is shifting from standalone BB10 devices sold on brand loyalty to carrier-distributed handsets that increasingly borrow Android, with AT&T and Verizon pricing deciding how much shelf space the keyboard niche keeps.