BlackBerry returns to the touchscreen with the Leap, on sale this week in the UK

By Trevor Mogg April 16, 2015

You are a Start Up. Be ready with the all new BlackBerry Leap

Despite its vastly shrunken market share, BlackBerry refuses to wave goodbye to the smartphone business. Its latest offering, the Leap, is all set for a global launch over the coming weeks, starting with the UK on Thursday. For this particular BB10 device, BlackBerry has decided to ditch its iconic physical QWERTY keyboard and go touchscreen-only.

Unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona during March, the new 4G LTE smartphone features a 5-inch edge-to-edge 720p display, while under the hood you’ll find a 1.5GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of built-in storage, expandable via a MicroSD card slot.

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The mid-range handset, which the company says is aimed at “young power professionals” (sorry old power professionals, this isn’t for you, it seems), also comes with an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2800mAh battery which can apparently handle up to 25 hours of heavy use on a single charge.

BlackBerry’s Ron Louks described the Canadian company’s latest handset as offering “an affordable choice to mobile professionals who require a smartphone that safeguards sensitive communications and keeps them productive.” You’ll see the Leap in BlackBerry UK’s online store now for £199, though it’s not shipping till April 24.

The phone will also be rolling out “over the next few weeks” in other countries including the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and India.

[Source: BlackBerry]

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Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

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