BlackBerry Passport Square-Shaped Smartphone Price Confirmed as $599

BlackBerry's CEO John Chen, ahead of the company's Wednesday event, has spilled the beans about pricing and even availability of the much-anticipated square-shaped smartphone, the Passport.

While talking to WSJ, Chen revealed that the BlackBerry Passport, which is all set to be announced at events in Dubai, London and Toronto on Wednesday, will be priced at $599 (Rs. 36,500 approximately) for the unlocked version in the US. However, the prices may vary for different markets due to local taxes.

He further confirmed that the new square-shaped smartphone from BlackBerry will be available in many markets in two weeks. WSJ (via GSMArena) notes, "Within two weeks after Wednesday's launch a lot of places will have the Passport, including markets in Asia."

It's worth noting that BlackBerry is hosting an event on September 29 in India, where the company is likely to announce Passport smartphone.

Chen also stressed that the company's new Passport smartphone is cheaper than high-end or flagships offered by other handset makers.

Last month, the Canadian manufacturer had even started taking pre-registrations for the square-shaped Passport smartphone. The dedicated pre-registration page is still live, and interested consumers can sign-up to get more details about the smartphone.

Although the design of the BlackBerry Passport is already official, the manufacturer had only revealed it to feature a 4.5-inch 1440x1440 pixel resolution display with a pixel density of 453ppi.

The Canadian company also launched its own voice-based virtual assistant, the BlackBerry Assistant, which will debut first on the BlackBerry Passport smartphone and will be a part of the upcoming BlackBerry 10.3 OS.

Other purported specifications of the device include a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974-AA) processor; an Adreno 330 GPU; 3GB of RAM; 32GB of inbuilt storage, expandable storage via microSD card (up to 64GB); a 13-megapixel rear camera with BSI sensor; a 2-megapixel front camera, and a 3450mAh battery.

The BlackBerry Passport is said to measure 128x90.3x9.3mm, and weigh 194.4 grams. The smartphone is likely to support Nano-SIM while supporting Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Micro-USB, NFC, GPS, Glonass, GPRS/ EDGE, 3G, and 4G LTE connectivity options.