The Blackberry Priv is now available in the United Kingdom via Carphone Warehouse or Vodafone. (Photo : Twitter)

BlackBerry began to take in pre-orders for the BlackBerry Priv from consumers in the U.S., Canada and UK. The pre-orders could be made through ShopBlackBerry US for American buyers, ShopBlackBerry Canada for Canadians and ShopBlackBerry UK for Britons.




The first BlackBerry device running on Android OS costs $699 in the US, $899 in Canada and £559 in UK, reports TechTimes. It is also available in Rogers for Canadian consumers, but the smartphone could on be reserved, not pre-ordered.



The handset could make or break the Canadian phonemaker that once dominated the mobile phone market, until Apple made the iPhone and Google made available Android phones.



It is the first handset in a long time to have a hardware keyboard. Priv has a 5.43-inch QHD AMOLED screen with a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution and uses Corning Gorilla Glass 4.0 to protect it from scratches. It runs on a hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processors with 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage. The phone's camera has a back 18-megapixel shooter capable also of taking 4K videos.



However, Android Headlines notes that the BlackBerry Priv was set up to fail because of its price. While in comparison to Galaxy S6, Galaxy Note 5 or HTC One M9 it is cheaper, the tech website points out that Priv is sold through carriers which sells the smartphone on contract or financing plan. Few people buy phones on retail at $700.







"This Android-powered Priv should have been the light at the end of the tunnel. It should have been their 'hero' device until the price was announced," notes Android Headlines. The tech portal suggested pricing it at $399 to $499 to sell a lot of Privs.

