BlackBerry has finally announced the release of its Android powered BlackBerry DTEK60 smartphone yesterday. The smartphone is priced at $499, which is approximately Rs 33,338 ( $650 CDN, EUR579 and £475) and is available for purchase from BlackBerry’s online store in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. Availability of DTEK60 in other countries will be announced in the coming weeks. 
For Blackberry, which made its name and image as one of the ‘safest’ phones around, the DTEK60 plays up the same theme. Thus, after a nod to the security ‘must have’ of the day, a fingerprint scanner, the DTEK60 goes on to pile up the protection features. Here’s a list:
1. The DTEK60 Android device comes with Encryption technology that protects against cyber-attacks and privacy violations. Playing on Blackberry’s legacy of quality protection.
2. Rapid Security Patching: BlackBerry has a record of being the quickest to deliver security patches, setting the bar for incident response and patch management to protect your device from malicious threats.
3. DTEK by BlackBerry App: Enables users to automatically monitor their OS and apps to know when their privacy could be at risk and to take action to improve it. The DTEK app also monitors applications and notifies you when someone is: taking pictures or videos without your knowledge, turning your microphone on, sending a text message, or accessing your contacts or location.
4. Hardware Root of Trust: BlackBerry uses a proprietary technique that adds security from the start, allowing for the tracking, verification and provisioning of the DTEK60.
5. Secure Boot Process: Starting with the root of trust, each stage of DTEK60’s secure boot chain must first verify that the next component is fully intact before proceeding, ensuring your device has not been tampered with since the last restart.
6. Android OS hardening: BlackBerry provides additional security patches, improves upon Android’s native Address Space Layout Randomization and reduces the number of system applications and services running with elevated permissions. This makes it more difficult for attackers to compromise the OS.
7. FIPS 140-2 Compliant Full Disk Encryption: Protects your private information, like pictures or bank information, from being stolen if you were to lose your phone.
8. Android for Work and Google Play for Work: Allows for fast, simple and secure integration with an enterprise environment as well as easy access to numerous rich business and IT-managed apps.
9. Full Enterprise Mobility Management Support: DTEK60 supports BlackBerry’s powerful suite of EMM applications and secure productivity solutions, including: WatchDox by BlackBerry for secure file-sharing, Good Work for business-class email and collaboration tools, Strong Authentication by BlackBerry as a VPN solution, SecuSUITE for Enterprise for secure voice and instant messaging communication, BBM Protected for encrypted messaging and BES12 for secure cross-platform management.
As far as tech specifications are concerned, the BlackBerry DTEK60 has Secure Android operating system and a 5.5-inch scratch-resistant display that comes with 2560 x 1440 pixels (Quad HD) resolution. The smartphone comes with an all-touch screen, with intuitive gesture based navigation. It is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 64-bit Quad-Core (MSM8996 with 64 bit Quad-Core 2+2 Kryo 2.15GHz / 1.6GHz) processor, which is paired with Adreno 530 624MHz GPU.
The BlackBerry DTEK60 comes with 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage, which can be further expandable up to 2TB via micro SD card. The smartphone gets its juices from 3000 mAh 4.4V non-removable Lithium-Ion battery, which claims to offer up to 26 hours talk time and up to 14 days standby time. The battery comes with Quick Charge 3.0 tech. The smartphone comes with USB Type-C port and also has Convenience key.
Besides, it has a 21-megapixel autofocus rear camera with PDAF, f/2.0, Dual tone LED flash and an 8-megapixel fixed focus front-facing camera for selfies and video chats. The camera features include Continuous & touch to focus, face detection, video image stabilisation, 4x digital zoom, Fast focus lock HDR, Panorama, Burst, Live Filters, and Multi-frame Low Light Enhancement. Besides, the smartphone offers 4G LTE, WiFi, 4G Mobile Hotspot, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.2 Low Energy (LE) and EDR, GPS/AGPS, GLONASS, NFC, Accelerometer, Magnetometer, Gyroscope, Proximity, Ambient light, and Hall Effect. The handset measures 153.9 mm x 75.4 mm x 7 mm and weighs 165 grams.