BlackBerry Classic Flaunts Keyboard Shortcuts in New Video

Notably, the Canadian company has been teasing features of the BlackBerry Classic QWERTY smartphone in a series of YouTube videos and earlier this week the company showed the handset's Classic Navigation Keys.

The Classic sports BlackBerry's traditional keyboard and the company in a new YouTube video has teased some of the shortcuts on the QWERTY, also seen in BlackBerry's popular Bold 9900 handset. The company stresses that the physical QWERTY keyboard is "definitely designed to boost productivity".

A blog post accompanying the video says, "The great news for you is, in addition to the easy, familiar navigation made possible by the Classic Navigation Keys, the QWERTY keyboard comes with time-saving default shortcuts. Take advantage of these, or customise them to suit your personal needs. As you once could on your beloved BlackBerry Bold, you can make use of nearly every letter in the physical keyboard and give it an action like Speed Dial for a contact, or use them to launch your most-used apps."

For using a keyboard shortcut, users will have to "hold a key to activate an existing shortcut or assign a new shortcut." For example, long pressing B will launch the browser; pressing C (within the BlackBerry Hub) will compose a message; U launches Calculator; N opens BBM; K locks the BlackBerry Classic, and Q to change notifications to silent, among others.

BlackBerry earlier this month started taking pre-order for Classic smartphone at $499 (roughly Rs. 30,800). The pre-order listing, while keeping the handset specifications under cover, added the smartphone will feature its traditional keyboard and navigation keys, a touchscreen display, will run BB10.3.1 OS with the ability to install both Android and BlackBerry apps, and 4G LTE connectivity.

Some of the rumoured specifications of the BlackBerry Classic smartphone include a 3.46-inch display with a resolution of 720x720 pixels; a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus CPU; 2GB of RAM; 16GB of inbuilt storage; expandable storage via microSD card (up to 128GB); an 8-megapixel rear camera; a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, and a 1515mAh battery.