New BlackBerry smartphone poised to make debut

TORON TO • Less than a month after BlackBerry Ltd. announced the end of in- house hardware development, the former smartphone titan appears to be prepping to release another smartphone next week.

The Waterloo, Ont. mobile maker is poised to make an announcement sometime next week. It’s not clear what will be said, but it comes amid increasing leaks about a new smartphone on tech blogs and BlackBerry’s own website.

The device, called the DTEK60, is expected to be an incrementally better version of the Android DTEK50 released in July. Pre- sale information has gone up on Canadian and U. S. websites, with prices reaching about $ 700 compared to $ 429 for its predecessor. A German retailer also released an advertisement that appears to confirm the DTEK60’s release next week.

Specifications leaked on BlackBerry’s website on a page marked “do not publish” in September ( it was taken down within hours) appear to match a BlackBerry device approved by the U. S. Federal Communi- cations Commission earlier that month.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen alluded to having three smartphones in the works before announcing that his company would shift i ts focus to software and stop designing its own phones. The DTEK60 would be the second of these devices. A third device with a keyboard will be out within six months, according to a BBC interview with one of BlackBerry’s top executives.

Chen previously conf i rmed t he existence of the new keyboard device, but said he hadn’t decided whether to release it.

Going f orward BlackBerry intends to sell its software and license its brand to handset manufacturers. It sold 400,000 devices in its most recent quarter, failing to break even in the division.