At the BlackBerry Security Summit Tuesday, BlackBerry CEO John Chen told those attending that the company will discuss its new hardware sometime next week.
In line with that statement, an upcoming BlackBerry device (likely the Hamburg) has just received FCC approval in the United States, suggesting that the smartphone should be launched pretty soon.
The device carries the model number of STH-100-2 (RJD211LW), and the FCC documents confirm that TCL is the manufacturer of the phone. This dovetails with previous rumors that BlackBerry’s second Android phone is a re-branded Alcatel Idol 4. TCL owns Alcatel.
In addition, the 2610mAh battery listed by the FCC as powering the smartphone matches the size of the cell inside the Alcatel Idol 4. Additionally, a GFXBench benchmark test of the device nearly had the same exact specs as the Idol 4, except under the hood.
The GFXBench test showed the new BlackBerry driven by a Snapdragon 615 SoC, with an octa-core 1.5GHz CPU, while the Alcatel Idol 4 is powered by a Snapdragon 617 chipset, with an octa-core 1.7GHz CPU inside.
The other specs include a 5.2-inch screen with a 1080 x 1920 resolution. 3GB of RAM inside with 16GB of internal storage. There is a 13MP rear camera and an 8MP front-facing selfie snapper with wide angle capabilities. Android 6.0.1 is pre-installed inside the Hamburg.
The device comes with support of multiple frequency bands of 4G LTE, 3G and 2G networks and supports WiFi, NFC, Bluetooth v4.2 LE and Micro-USB.
A report coming out of Canada claims that the ‘Hamburg’ will be priced at about £203 ($268 USD / $350 CAD at current conversion rates)
