BlackBerry Mercury, Like Pixel Phones And LG V20, Will Run Android 7.0 Nougat Out Of The Box

BlackBerry appears to be up to speed when it comes to releasing new Android smartphones. Since releasing the PRIV and DTEK50, the Canadian company reportedly worked on a new smartphone, which is now called the DTEK60. Just this Monday, however, new information has surfaced, revealing that Apple’s former greatest rival is working on another Android hardware.

According to PhoneArena, BlackBerry’s fourth Android handset was spotted at Geekbench recently. The device has the model number BBB100-1, but it is known internally as BlackBerry Mercury. Also, it appears that BlackBerry’s upcoming smartphone is going to run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.

Should BlackBerry Mercury indeed come with Android Nougat, it is the third release that will run Google’s latest mobile OS — the Pixel phones and the LG V20 have the honor to run the new OS straight out of the box as well.

Unfortunately, the BlackBerry Mercury is not going to be a high-end device. The Geekbench leak details that the handset is packing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 processor, an Adreno 506 GPU, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage.

Interestingly, it is believed that the upcoming smartphone could feature a physical keyboard. As per Android Headlines, this is possible because the leak claims that Mercury has a 4.5-inch display with a 720p screen resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio. Nonetheless, there is still no confirmation if the device is indeed launching with BlackBerry's famous physical keyboard.

Making the handset even more interesting is it is reportedly sporting an 18-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel front snapper and a relatively large 3,400mAh battery.

The leak comes after the DTEK60 made a surprise appearance on the B&H website. The device, which reportedly comes with a 5.5-inch display and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 chip, was revealed to sell for $499.99. The preorder page was quickly taken down, however.