Following surprising success of BlackBerry KEYone (review) in 2017, TCL plans to launch three new BlackBerry smartphones this year. The devices codenamed Athena, Luna and Uni have been popping all over the internet, making their appearances on Geekbench, through configuration files and in European device registration databases. The latest information comes on the backdrop of BlackBerry Mobile officially announcing two new keyboard-based smartphones will arrive in 2018 with model numbers BBE100-1 and BBF100-1. Now it looks like the company will be releasing three smartphones instead of two.
Starting with Uni, LetsGoDigital recently unearthed patents and trademarks of the phone owned by TCL and Blackberry. The phone is expected to look identical to the Blackberry Priv as per the findings. One of the highlights of the device is a retractable physical keyboard.
The smartphone will come with a 5.5-inch display, and similar to Priv feature a curved touchscreen display. The patent also suggests dual camera module onboard the smartphone. In terms of software, the Blackberry Uni will ship with Android 8.0 Oreo and arrive in mid-2018.
Moving along, the BlackBerry Athena is rumoured to feature a keyboard-based design and have larger keys than the BlackBerry KEYone. The device is said to feature 6GB or 8GB of RAM and has 64GB of onboard storage. The other highlight of the dual rear camera module with portrait mode.
The Athena it also appears will arrive with Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor. As for the timeframe of the release, nothing is confirmed, but one leaked poster says April 2018. It is possible that TCL may unveil the smartphone at the upcoming Mobile World Congress.
Lastly, there’s BlackBerry Luna which aligns with the BBE100-1 model previously rumoured. The device is expected to be a mid-tier model. The original poster of the BlackBerry Luna mentions August release for the smartphone.
However, since this information is coming in from a number of sources, there’s no way to confirm any of this. We advise you to take it a pinch of salt until BlackBerry officially launches any of these smartphones.
