Dec 27, 2016 07:30 AM EST By Marj Sendon, UniversityHerald Reporter

After few months of Blackberry's silence, the hardware company is back once again with new smartphones made by TCL. The Blackberry Smartphones for 2017, Blackberry Mercury, will be the last mobile phone from Blackberry before the Chinese smartphone and electronics manufacturer takes over.

Blackberry and TCL didn't reveal much detail of the upcoming handsets but some of its features were leaked online. Reports point out that the new Blackberry Mercury is going to have a QWERTY keypad, but unlike the old models, it will come out with a touch screen with 4.5-inch display. The Blackberry Mercury is powered by 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor with a 32GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage.

The camera boasts an 8MP front and a 18MP rear camera which is perfect for basic photography. The new Blackberry mobile phone will have a large battery that users will be able to use the handset for 2 days. The Blackberry Mercury is also expected to run an Android Nougat, the latest Nougat update.

There have been reports that the new Blackberry Mercury is a trimmed version of the Blackberry Passport with curve-edged screen. Its rare appearance and unique design makes the new Blackberry Mercury a little bit catchy and may draw some attention when it is launched at the CES 2017, PhoneArena reported.

Note to all BB lovers, this will be the last handset by Blackberry as the company had previously announced their plans to leave the hardware business and will stop designing and building phones. However, Blackberry will still work on developing security and software solutions to Blackberry mobile phones in order to continue serving their loyal customers and maintain the features of the Blackberry handsets. Meanwhile, TCL will handle the sales and distribution of the Blackberry smartphones as well as exclusive global manufacturer of the said brand, according to GSM Arena.

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