MWC: BlackBerry takes Leap of faith

At the Mobile World Congress, BlackBerry announced the Leap, an affordable all-touch smartphone with a 5″ HD display and enough battery power to last over a day.

BlackBerry yesterday introduced the new BlackBerry Leap smartphone for 4G LTE networks. The BlackBerry Leap is an affordable all-touch smartphone in a modern a design that, says the company, “is built for career builders and companies who value security and privacy when pushing their productivity to the next level”.

BlackBerry Leap includes a brilliant edge-to-edge five-inch HD display, BlackBerry’s latest operating system and more than a full day’s battery power.

In today’s mobile world – influenced by trends like BYOD – where personal and corporate data are frequently under attack from hackers, companies and everyday consumers are finding out the hard way that mobile security is paramount,” said Ron Louks, President, Devices and Emerging Solutions. “BlackBerry Leap was built specifically for mobile professionals who see their smartphone device as a powerful and durable productivity tool that also safeguards sensitive communications at all times.

“With BlackBerry Leap complementing the latest BlackBerry portfolio, including BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry Classic, we continue to provide products and services that meet the needs of our consumer and enterprise customers,” Louks added.

According to BlackBerry, top features of BlackBerry Leap include:

· Security to Maintain Privacy -You can feel safe in the knowledge that BlackBerry Leap was designed with the highest standards of security in mind to protect your privacy. It is equipped with support for encryption, plus built-in malware protection and back-up, wipe and restore. All to give you control and help secure your data against the next embarrassing and potentially costly cyberattack.

· Battery That Powers Through a Full Day РWith up to 25 hours of heavy use, the BlackBerry Leap will power through even your most demanding day. The impressive 2800 mAh battery and optimization of power consumption in BlackBerry 10 gives users more than a full day of productive usage.

¬∑ Best-in-Class BlackBerry Keyboard – Type faster and more accurately on a touchscreen keyboard that learns how you write. With superior error correction, multi-language support, customized adaption and flow, BlackBerry’s touchscreen keyboard helps to reduce the mistakes and missteps that can hold you back.

¬∑ BlackBerry 10 OS 10.3.1 – BlackBerry Leap comes preloaded with the new BlackBerry 10.3.1 operating system, offering a fresh look that incorporates updated icons and an instant action bar so that users’ most commonly accessed functions are in the center of their screen. Additional features include:

– BlackBerry Blend – BlackBerry Blend brings messaging and content that is on your BlackBerry smartphone to your computer and tablet. Get instant message notifications, read and respond to your work and personal email, BBM or text messages, and access your documents, calendar, contacts and media in real time on whatever device you are on, powered by your BlackBerry. BlackBerry Blend works across desktop operating systems, including Mac OS X 10.7 +, Windows 7+ and Android tablets running Android 4.4+ via cellular, USB or Wi-Fi connections.

– BlackBerry Assistant – The BlackBerry Assistant is BlackBerry’s first digital assistant and can be used with voice and text commands to help users manage work and personal email, contacts, calendar and other native BlackBerry 10 applications. It’s the only smartphone assistant on the market today that can access both personal and work content in your work perimeter. BlackBerry Assistant intelligently determines how to respond to you based on how you interact with it – if you type, it responds silently, if you speak, it speaks back and if you activate over Bluetooth, it speaks back with additional context because it assumes you might not have access to the screen.

– Dual app storefronts preloaded for access to a huge selection of apps for work and play:

– BlackBerry World – BlackBerry World offers essential business and productivity apps for professionals looking to drive efficient communications and collaboration including Box, Evernote, Cisco WebEx Meetings and Documents to Go.

– Amazon Appstore – Discover and download popular Android apps and games through the Amazon Appstore including Candy Crush Saga, Pinterest, SoundCloud, Kindle and Amazon Shopping.

We have been working closely with BlackBerry as a partner for years to offer their mobile solutions and services to our customers. With today’s launch of BlackBerry Leap we are excited to have the latest touchscreen BlackBerry device available for our reseller partners and their mobile professional customers who want to achieve more. Privacy, security and productivity are important for them and this latest device complements our existing portfolio of BlackBerry products and services, including BES12, BlackBerry Value-Added Services, BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry Classic,” said Shailendra Gupta, Executive VP & President Ingram Micro Mobility.

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