The BlackBerry Priv has been one of the more interesting stories of the year, no matter your perspective on BlackBerry as a company. Its first Android smartphone does things a little differently, a little more secure, and now we know that it does things a little more expensively too. Yes, the BlackBerry Priv is available for pre-order now in the US, Canada and the UK, and the one resounding piece of news is that it’s not exactly a cheap device – in the US, you’ll need to pay $699 USD, in Canada, $899 CAD and in the UK, £559 (equivalent to $857 USD). I’m not going to even ask what price they ask for in Australia…
BlackBerry CEO John Chen said in his statement this morning:
“BlackBerry is a new company. We have new life. And we plan to continue to surprise our customers and the industry. This is just the latest move along that path.”
The pricing of the BlackBerry Priv is pretty much exactly where we expected a super-secure smartphone to be priced – but somehow, we’re still a little surprised given BlackBerry’s precarious position in the smartphone industry. BlackBerry says that the availability of the Priv is going to continue globally as time goes on – those of you who can pre-order now will start receiving their devices on November 6th.
What do you think about the pricing of the BlackBerry Priv? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: BlackBerry (1), (2) via engadget
