1:1 Aspect Ratio and Touch-Enabled Keyboard Challenge Industry's Status Quo

Oct 15, 2014

South Africa - Johannesburg - BlackBerry Limited (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB), a global leader in mobile communications, today announced that the BlackBerry® Passport, a new device purpose-built for productivity with a boundary-breaking design that challenges the status quo, will be available in South Africa from authorized partners in early November. Featuring a large square touch screen, new QWERTY touch-enabled keyboard and BlackBerry's latest 10.3 operating system, the BlackBerry Passport gives users a wider vision to do mobile business without compromising portability.

"South Africa is a country of early adopters of the latest smartphone trends and I am convinced they are going to love our BlackBerry Passport; it's unique, innovative, disruptive and very BlackBerry," said Yudi Moodley, Managing Director for Africa at BlackBerry.

The BlackBerry Passport encourages productivity with a 4.5'' square touch screen that optimizes screen real estate to enable users to read 60 characters per line, whereas a typical all-touch device in portrait orientation only displays 40 characters. When you combine this with a revolutionary touch-enabled keyboard, you will be able to get more done on your smartphone, without feeling the need to turn to your PC or tablet to read and write emails, view maps, surf the Web or edit documents.

Key features include:

  • Innovative Screen - The BlackBerry Passport has a 4.5'' square full HD screen and a pixel density of 453ppi, offering the best resolution of any device in its range including the Galaxy S5 and iPhone 6 Plus.

  • Best-in-Class Battery Power - At 3450mAh, the BlackBerry Passport battery accounts for up to 30 hours of mixed use.*

  •  BlackBerry® Keyboard - The BlackBerry Passport's revolutionary new keyboard brings innovation to input with a responsive touch surface that lets you perform many touch functions directly on the keyboard. You can scroll web pages, flick to type or slide along the keys to move the cursor, leaving the full screen space for viewing.

  • Premium Components - The device is built for the most demanding user using durable materials mixed with top-of-the-line technology, including a Gorilla Glass display with 1440 X 1440 resolution, Quad Core 2.2 GHZ Processor, 3 GB RAM, 13 MP OIS rear Camera and 32 GB memory.

  • BlackBerry® 10 OS 10.3 - The BlackBerry Passport comes preloaded with the BlackBerry 10.3 operating system, including new features such as BlackBerry Assistant, BlackBerry Blend and Amazon Appstore. It has a fresh look that incorporates updated icons and an action bar so that each user's most commonly accessed functions are in the center of their screen.

  • BlackBerry Blend - BlackBerry® Blend seamlessly brings messaging and content that is on your BlackBerry Passport to your computer and tablet. Get instant notifications, read and respond to your work and personal messages, and access your documents, calendar, contacts, BBM and media in real-time on supported Mac OS, Windows and Android devices, powered by your BlackBerry.

  • BlackBerry® Assistant - The BlackBerry Assistant is BlackBerry's first digital assistant and can be used with voice and text commands to help users manage work and personal email, contacts, calendar and other native BlackBerry 10 applications. BlackBerry Assistant intelligently determines how to respond to you based on how you interact with it - if you type, it responds silently, if you speak, it speaks back and if you activate over Bluetooth, it speaks back with additional context because it assumes you might not have access to the screen.

  • BlackBerry® World™ storefront - BlackBerry World showcases essential apps for the BlackBerry Passport smartphone customer, including productivity apps like Bloomberg Professional. Get the best on BlackBerry World, uniquely suited to you.

  • Amazon Appstore - Preloaded on BlackBerry Passport, users can access popular consumer apps through the Amazon Appstore, including the latest Android games and apps, such as Groupon, Netflix, Pinterest, Candy Crush Saga and Minecraft.

  • BlackBerry® Natural Sound - BlackBerry Passport comes with powerful speakers and a quad microphone system that delivers a high-quality listening experience. BlackBerry® Natural Sound Technology is built in to adapt Wi-Fi and cellular call sound depending upon phone position and background noise, automatically adjusting volume so you don't have to.

For more information about the BlackBerry Passport, please visit www.BlackBerry.com/Passport.

* Based on mixed usage scenario. Many factors affect battery life, including network connectivity, application usage, feature configuration and battery age. Actual results may vary.

About BlackBerry

A global leader in mobile communications, BlackBerry® revolutionized the mobile industry when it was introduced in 1999. Today, BlackBerry aims to inspire the success of our millions of customers around the world by continuously pushing the boundaries of mobile experiences. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, BlackBerry operates offices in North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America. The Company trades under the ticker symbols "BB" on the Toronto Stock Exchange and "BBRY" on the NASDAQ.www.BlackBerry.com.

distributed by