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19 March 2024

BlackBerry Priv falling... @ Dh1,470: Where, how and why

Priv is selling on several online stores at a price tag of around Dh1,470 to Dh1,700. (Supplied)

Published
By Joseph George

The prices of BlackBerry Priv - the company's latest flagship device and the one that runs on Android OS - is falling and falling fast.

The smartphone was launched in the market for a price tag of Dh2,800 plus but has dropped significantly since then.

Currently the Priv is selling on several online stores at a price tag of around Dh1,470 to Dh1,700 although several other retail stores including Souq are continuing to sell the device at around Dh2,200.

On Etisalat's store, the device is still priced at Dh2,499, making it the third most expensive device after the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge priced at Dh2,799 and the iPhone 6S Plus which is priced at Dh2,760.

However, BlackBerry Priv can be obtained for free with a postpaid smartphone bundle plan starting at Dh290 per month from Etisalat and for Dh699 with a postpaid plan of Dh250 per month from du.

It is not just in the UAE that the prices of the Priv are dropping. The device is selling on eBay for around $380 roughly around the same price in the UAE.

Priv has been tipped as Blackberry's comeback device. BlackBerry also equipped it with some 5.4-inch Quad HD display, 3GB of RAM, Snapdragon 808, 32GB of internal storage but expandable, 18-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front camera and a 3,410 mAh battery.

There has been disturbing news for BlackBerry with recent reports especially quoting an anonymous person at At&T stating that its high price structure and lack of awareness about using Android by traditional BlackBerry fans have caused several users to return their devices.

According to the official it was not the general Android users who opted for BlackBerry Priv that was equipped with a physical keyboard but mostly Blackberry fans who were otherwise users of BlackBerry OS.

While these users were not able to easily adopt to Android and the fact that the device was priced at around $699 or Dh2,890 did really affect sales.

Meanwhile, Blackberry which launched Google’s Android Marshmallow update for Priv last month has updated several of its apps in Google Play with new features along with a software maintenance release.

The updates adds several features including updates to the keyboard that introduces the ability to use familiar keyboard shortcuts, such as undo (Ctrl + Z) and more along with other prediction and correction improvements.

Enhancement to the camera app includes manual controls including manual focus, changing the shutter speed, ISO sensitivity, white balance, and exposure. Users can control the camera app either thrtought he screen or the physical keyboard.

There are also updates to BlackBerry Device Search, BlackBerry Launcher, and DTEK by BlackBerry.