BlackBerry looking to discontinue the Priv, Passport, Classic and other models

BlackBerry is prepping itself for the release of the BlackBerry KEYone in the US. In preparation of this, the company has removed the Priv and a number of other smartphones from its website in the US and Canada.

BlackBerry had released the Priv back in November 2015 and it was the company’s first smartphone running Android and focusing on security features. The smartphone sported a classic slide-out BlackBerry keyboard that was not very popular among consumers.

The company seems to have pulled the Priv from its online store in the US and Canada, and has also posted discounts for a number of smartphones. The DTEK50 received a 70 per cent price cut and sells for $229, while the DTEK60 has a price of $460.

The Priv is however, still available in Europe where BlackBerry seems to sell the PRIV in online stores in Europe, customers from Germany, France and the UK can purchase the device for a price starting at 294 pounds or 342 EUR, depending on the country.

The KEYone has a price of £499 in the UK and is BlackBerry’s latest smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard and fingerprint sensor embedded in the keys. It comes with a 4.5-inch IPS LCD display with 1620 x 1080 pixel resolution with 3:2 aspect ratio and runs Snapdragon 625 SoC, with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, with the option to add 2TB using a microSD card. Rear camera capacity reaches 12MP on the smartphone, while the battery capacity is 3,505mAh with Quick Charge 3.0.