BlackBerry is reportedly building three new Android phones
Neon, Argon and Mercury: we'll see one new BlackBerry each quarter, according to this report.
BlackBerry is going all-in on Android, and perhaps with more devices than we thought. BlackBerry is currently working on three new Android phones, according to Evan Blass, a journalist with an excellent track record for phone leaks.
The three new phones are codenamed Neon, Argon and Mercury, according to Blass' source, and we will reportedly see one of the phones each quarter.
The Neon will reportedly be a low to mid-range, aluminum-housed phone with a 5.2-inch 1080p-resolution screen, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and no physical keyboard, and arrive by the end of August for free on contract.
This October, the Argon will allegedly be a high-end phone with a 5.5-inch QHD-resolution screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a fingerprint reader, a 21-megapixel camera, a USB-C charging port -- and also no physical keyboard.
In the first quarter of 2017, the Mercury will allegedly be the only new BlackBerry device with a physical keyboard, one that lives at the bottom of a more squared-off screen like many previous BlackBerrys. It also sounds like a mid-range phone, with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, though it also may house a relatively large 3400mAh battery.
In January, BlackBerry's CEO confirmed plans to produce up to two Android phones. Now, it appears there are three -- and at least two of them sound like they'll target lower price points than the company's first Android phone, the BlackBerry Priv, which had disappointingly low sales.
The US Senate also recently stopped issuing BlackBerry phones to its staffers.
BlackBerry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.