BlackBerry DTEK50 is BlackBerry’s Second Android Smartphone… and Counting

As it turns out the BlackBerry Priv wasn’t a one time Android experiment like some smartphone pundits had hoped it was. It was very much a step in the right direction from the once dominant BlackBerry. Now the company has made its intentions clear – BlackBerry wishes to fight for survival even if that means dearly hanging on to a rope that’s bound to break sooner or later. And they might just survive because they are soon going to be an Android powered smartphone brand, irrespective of whether they openly admit to it or not.

The latest smartphone from the Waterloo based company is its second Android phone ever and it’s known as the BlackBerry DTEK50. Let’s take a closer look at the specifications on this phone.

Specifications – BlackBerry DTEK 50

The BlackBerry DTEK50 comes with a 5.2 inch scratch resistant display that has a screen resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels. The pixel density on the display is 424 ppi. The DTEK50 is powered by an Octa Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor alongside a 550 MHz Adreno 405 GPU. The phone comes with a 3 GB RAM. This configuration certainly makes the DTEK50 one of the better performing mid-range Android smartphones going around.

The internal storage on the DTEK50 is 16 GB. The good news is that this average internal storage capacity can be expanded up to a mammoth 2 TB if you are willing to invest in a microSD card.

More from iSpyPrice: Check out the expected India price of the new BlackBerry DTEK50 mobile

The primary camera on the BlackBerry DTEK50 is a 13 megapixel unit which supports dual-tone LED flash, 4x digital zoom, Phase Detection auto-focus, and has a 6P lens. The selfie crowd should be pleased with what the DTEK50 has to offer on the secondary camera. The secondary camera is an 8 megapixel unit which supports LED flash and 84 degree wide angle lens which makes taking a selfie all the more easier and fun.

The DTEK50 is a single SIM phone and has ample connectivity options. The phone supports 4G connectivity, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, microUSB 2.0, USB OTG, NFC, and WiFi Hotspot among others. The dimensions on the phone are 147 x 72.5 x 7.4 mm. The DTEK50 weighs a mere 135 grams. One has come to expect high quality hardware specs from a BlackBerry product irrespective of the cost of manufacturing even during troubled times and BlackBerry continues to stick to its basics. For a smartphone with its form factor, the DTEK50 qualifies as a lightweight and will be an easy to carry device.

The battery capacity on the DTEK50 is 2610 mAh. This is something that continues to puzzle the smartphone industry. Even with improvements in battery technology most smartphone brands haven’t resorted to shipping killer battery specs on their products. Chinese smartphone maker Gionee is certainly one brand which does that to great effect with its Marathon series of smartphones. So while the battery capacity on the DTEK50 isn’t bad, considering that this is a mid-range phone, it isn’t great either. The battery does support Quick Charge 2.0 so that’s a plus for the DTEK50.

The BlackBerry DTEK50 is powered by Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS. When was the last time you would have thought someone would say that a BlackBerry phone is powered by an Android OS? Well, perhaps around the time the BlackBerry Priv launched, but surely not before that.

While this turn of events was long expected, the fact that it took BlackBerry forever to jump on the Android bandwagon was surprising to many who followed the brand closely. Not only does Android offer a much larger consumer base for BlackBerry to tap into, it also offers the previously absent opportunity for BlackBerry to nudge its relatively strong developer network towards building apps for BlackBerry devices which are powered by Android.

The argument has always been that BlackBerry is a secure ecosystem and Android has never been a secure system software. Well that seems to have changed with Android 6.0 Marshmallow to a large extent. The much maligned ‘permission’ system on Android phones seems to have found a new lease of life with Android Marshmallow and this is good news for BlackBerry which prides itself on offering security to the consumer.

With the launch of the DTEK50 certain claims have resurfaced that are trying to position this phone as the most secure smartphone ever. Let’s be honest here. This isn’t a new BlackBerry tactic. This is the oldest trick in the BlackBerry hat and the tech media maybe falling for it again. I am not going to claim that the BlackBerry DTEK50 isn’t the most secure smartphone ever, I will just remind you what happened when the world’s most wanted drug lord El Chapo bought a BlackBerry because he was sold the same claim.