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BlackBerry Venice leak shows off Android slider’s keyboard, November launch on all major U.S. carriers

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Infamous leaker Evan Blass (evleaks) has once again posted more details of BlackBerry’s Android phone, codenamed Venice. Blass had already suggested the device was coming to AT&T in the U.S., though today he shared that it will launch on all four major U.S. carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile) in November.

In June, rumors that BlackBerry was building an Android smartphone returned in full force, with a big leak in July. As one who loves BlackBerry hardware but not the software, I’m excited about the potential of a proper QWERTY phone with Android apps.

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Notice the Google Play logo in the first image, as well as the Android version of BlackBerry Hub, supposed Chromecast support, and Content Transfer for BlackBerry that will let you move phone data using Google Drive:

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The device is expected to feature a dual curved display (think Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge) with a physical keyboard that slides up from underneath (think Palm Pre). Leaks have shown Google apps before, suggesting Venice is getting a largely unmodified version of Android, unlike Amazon’s Fire OS, which is based on a fork of Google’s mobile operating system.

The hardware is similar to the slider that BlackBerry showed off back at Mobile World Congress in March:

While the above device is clearly running BlackBerry OS 10, the leaks have only ever shown Android. We’ve also seen rumored specs that include a Snapdragon 808 processor, a 5.4-inch QHD LCD, and 3GB of RAM, but nothing has confirmed these yet.

Because these are leaks, the details are still up in the air. Nonetheless, it’s looking more and more likely that BlackBerry will be launching an Android phone sometime this year. It’s also becoming increasingly clear that the device will probably be a slider, and that it will possibly run Google Play services.

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Update: Blass has now posted a video showing off the upcoming BlackBerry Android phone.

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