BlackBerry Venice Android Smartphone Spotted in Hands-On Video

Although the long-rumoured BlackBerry Venice Android smartphone isn’t expected to release until November, we already know enough about the forthcoming handset from numerous leaks and rumours. Not long ago we saw the alleged images of the smartphone, and now for the first time, we’re seeing it shot in a video in its full glory courtesy of a Canadian mobile retailer.

From the video, the company’s first Android handset, the BlackBerry Venice, seems to be running the stock version of Android Lollipop version with a number of handy additions such as tap-to-wake, shortcuts to launch email app, and others. The Qwerty keyboard of the phone comes with capacitive touch input, which will allow a user to scroll through a page just by touching the keyboard.

Interestingly, BlackBerry Password Keeper, a popular app available on BlackBerry handsets that offers the ability to save and manage passwords, logins, and store information safe and secure can also be seen in the app drawer. BlackBerry and Google earlier this year inked a deal to bring several BlackBerry security apps and services to Google’s mobile operating system to bolster Android’s overall security. It seems we’ll be seeing several BlackBerry security apps on the Venice Android handset as well.

As per the Baka Mobile presenter, the build quality of the handset is pretty good. He further noted that the handset is very well balanced despite having a keyboard that can slide out.

The video, unfortunately, doesn’t confirm the hardware specifications of the handset just yet. A previous report suggests that the BlackBerry Venice will sport a 5.4-inch QHD display and come equipped with a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset paired with 3GB of RAM. An 18-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front-camera are also tipped.