BlackBerry Priv won't receive update to Android Nougat

Carly Page
@CarlyPage_
12 September 2017

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BLACKBERRY HAS LIKELY pissed off a handful of people with the news that its BlackBerry Priv smartphone won't be updated to Android Nougat.

The confirmation comes via Alex Thurber, general manager of BlackBerry Mobility Solutions, who said on a recent episode of the UTB Blogcast (below) that the Priv, released in 2015 running Android Lollipop, won't be getting the upgrade to Nougat.

Thurber noted that while the Priv was updated to Marshmallow, the amount of work required to get all the partners together behind an upgrade to Nougat was "next to impossible."

This will come as a blow to owners of the BlackBerry Priv, as although BlackBerry never promised that its first Android smartphone would be upgraded to Android 7.0, most ship with the guarantee of at least two major Android software upgrades in their lifetime.

It's likely bad news for owners of the BlackBerry DTEK50 and DTEK60 smartphones, too. While Thurber didn't confirm that a Nougat update definitely wouldn't arrive on the duo of smartphones, he mentioned that the DTEK devices were TCL reference designs to test the reality of whether the licensing model made sense. So, yeah, it's looking pretty unlikely.

There was some good news to come out of the, er, 'Blogcast', though. As well as affirming BlackBerry's commitment to providing security updates for its Android smartphone lineup, Thurber also confirmed that the BlackBerry KeyOne will be upgraded to Android 8.0 Oreo, as will an as-yet-unannounced device out of TCL.

This unannounced device is expected to arrive as the so-called BlackBerry Krypton. The device was spotted at the Wi-Fi alliance for certification earlier this month and includes four different production numbers - BBD100-1, BBD100-2, BBD100-3, and BBD100-6 - which hints at multiple variants of the device.

We don't know much else about the device, but it likely will pack a Snapdragon 624 SoC, 4GB RAM and a 4,000mAh battery, and will run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. µ