The new BlackBerry Leap smartphone is now officially available for purchase in the U.S., as well as a few markets in Europe.

The company started taking pre-orders for its BlackBerry Leap in late March, offering the handset for $275 unlocked. Following pre-orders, the BlackBerry Leap started its global rollout last week in the UK, and has now gone on sale in France, Germany, and the U.S. as well. Next in line are Canada, India, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

As a reminder, the all-touch BlackBerry Leap smartphone sports a 5-inch display with an HD resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and packs a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Plus processor under the hood, clocked at 1.5GHz and paired with an Adreno 305 graphics processing unit (GPU) and 2GB of RAM.

Other specifications include 16GB of internal storage capacity, microSD support for additional memory of up to 128GB, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front shooter, and a 2,500 mAh battery that will allegedly last for up to 25 hours of heavy use, according to BlackBerry. In terms of software, the BlackBerry Leap comes with BlackBerry OS 10.3.1 on board out of the box, offering a number of neat features.

When it comes to security, something BlackBerry is famous for, the BlackBerry Leap comes with support for encryption, built-in anti-malware protection, as well as back-up, wipe, and restore features.

In other words, the BlackBerry Leap is not the highest-end device and it doesn't come with wildly impressive hardware specifications on board, but it does provide extra security and should deliver a decent performance for its category and price tag.

The BlackBerry Leap is now available for purchase in the U.S. for $275, from both BlackBerry's store and Amazon. In France and Germany the smartphone is available from BlackBerry's store for €289.00, while in the UK customers can purchase the BlackBerry Leap for £199.00 (including VAT) from BlackBerry or Vodafone.

Lastly, it's worth pointing out that the BlackBerry Leap will not work on Verizon Wireless, Sprint, or U.S. Cellular, as it is not compatible with these networks. To learn more about the handset, check out the official BlackBerry Leap demo video below.