BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen Holds Up The Unreleased Blackberry Passport
BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen holds up the unreleased Blackberry Passport device during the company's annual general meeting for shareholders in Waterloo June 19, 2014. Reuters/Mark Blinch

BlackBerry has been teasing about the Passport smartphone for quite some time now. According to WSJ, BlackBerry Passport's official release date is Sept 24. On the said date, BlackBerry will reportedly reveal the Passport handset through a press event and will release the device afterward.

The BlackBerry Passport launch event will be held in London, Toronto and Dubai, so speculations are rife that the BlackBerry Passport will be initially available in UK, Canada and UAE. According to PhoneArena, BlackBerry's CEO, John Chen, said that the unlocked edition of BlackBerry Passport will be sold for $599, without subsidies, in the US.

Chen adds that most of the flagship smartphones are released around the price tag of $700. However, the BlackBerry Passport will come out with a slightly lower price tag.

The BlackBerry Passport, which sports a QWERTY keyboard, has a square-shaped, 4.5-inch display. It offers a display resolution of 1440 x 1440 pixels. It also supports a high pixel density of 45 ppi.

The QWERTY handset is powered by Snapdragon 800 chipset that includes a 2.2 GHz quad-core processor. It is equipped with 3 GB RAM and inbuilt storage of 32 GB.

The rear of BlackBerry Passport features a 13 MP camera whereas the front has a 2 MP selfie centric camera. The handset will be running on the latest BlackBerry OS 10.3.

One of the unique selling points of the BlackBerry Passport smartphone is its massive battery of 3450 mAh capacity. According to Chen, the huge battery of BlackBerry Passport can run up to 36 hours.

PhoneArena claims that BlackBerry has built a good smartphone for the price tag it carries. However, according to an analyst named Daniel Pang from IDC Malaysia, the BlackBerry Passport, though a good phone, may not really be able to compete with other devices from the industry giants.

PhoneArena notes, however, that the BlackBerry Passport is a very brave comeback for BlackBerry. Besides the Passport, BlackBerry is set to release BlackBerry Classic, a smartphone with a user-friendly keyboard for quick communication.