The long wait is almost over; BlackBerry will be releasing their first ever Android-based smartphone beginning this Friday. The Priv will be the first BlackBerry phone to not run using their own operating system. It is also said to be the company's last attempt to boost their sales and save their company's hardware division. This move is long overdue according to critics; BlackBerry should have been appealing to the smartphone industry instead of fighting it and being beaten by big companies such as Apple and Samsung.

The latest Blackberry device is named Priv which is said to be short for privacy and privilege. The company promises consumers that Priv will be able to help them know who exactly are accessing their information. This will be achieved by the monitoring of apps and outlining how many times services and log information like GPS co-ordinates, access photo files, or activate the microphone.

The design of the smartphone comes out as a compromise between the smartphone that the public knows from their old models with that "keypad". It has a large touch screen that is like that of the usual popular smartphones today. The noticeable feature of Priv is its QWERTY slide out keyboard that makes typing on a keyboard easier and which will cater to BlackBerry's more traditional loyal users.

The BlackBerry Priv runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop in a 64 bit Snapdragon 808 processor and Adreno 418 GPU. It features a quad HD dual curved edge display like that of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+. BlackBerry Priv also has an 18MP dual flash Schneider Kreuznach certified camera, 3GB RAM, 32GB of internal storage with a microSD expansion slot that can support up to 2TB microSD cards. It also comes in a 3, 410 mAh battery that can power the phone uninterrupted for up to 22.5 hours.

AT&T announced that they will begin selling BlackBerry Priv this Friday, November 6. The other carriers have not announced yet on when they will start selling the BlackBerry Priv but it is already expected to be sold by all major carriers in the U.S, AT&T just appears to be the first one to be offering BlackBerry Priv to their consumers.