BlackBerry plans four phones this year, including $275 all-touch 5-inch Leap phablet
BlackBerry plans to launch a sliding ‘dual-curved display’ phone this year — During a press conference at Mobile World Congress today, BlackBerry revealed that it plans to launch a new touchscreen slider device later this year.
Context & Ripple Effects
At Mobile World Congress, BlackBerry laid out a four-phone year anchored by two extremes: a $275 all-touch Leap for budget buyers and an unnamed sliding device with a dual-curved display aimed upmarket. The related coverage shows where that slider went — a mid-year render of the Android-powered 'Venice' slider bound for AT&T, followed by BlackBerry's own September post on expanding onto Android.
By October the mystery slider had become the Priv, taking UK pre-orders at £579.99 with a curved 5.4-inch screen and slide-out keyboard — a price point far above the Leap's. The arc ends two years later with TCL shipping the KeyOne, meaning the in-house roadmap announced at this press conference was the last one BlackBerry built itself.
First-order effects
- BlackBerry commits to four launches in one year — unusual volume for a company whose recent cadence was sparse — spanning a $275 budget phablet to a premium dual-curved slider.
- The Leap puts BlackBerry into the low-margin all-touch segment it had largely ceded, while the slider targets the keyboard-plus-touchscreen niche that became the Priv.
Second-order effects
- The slider's move to Android forced a strategic break: after years of betting on BB10, BlackBerry shipped the Priv running Google's OS, conceding that app gaps were costing it more than platform control was worth.
- A £579.99 Priv pre-order price positioned BlackBerry against flagship iPhones and Galaxys rather than the value tier the $275 Leap occupies, splitting its own lineup across two incompatible customer bases.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and the later TCL-built KeyOne confirms it did — BlackBerry exits handset engineering entirely and survives as a licensed brand name on third-party Android hardware, monetizing security reputation and the keyboard design rather than manufacturing.
- For the broader market, a legacy OS vendor adopting Android validated the 'everyone converges on one mobile OS' endgame, leaving only Apple outside Google's platform.
The trend: Struggling smartphone makers are converting from OS owners into licensed hardware brands riding Android, with BlackBerry's 2015-to-TCL arc as the template.