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Blackberry today confirmed that the Blackberry Priv will soon be launching on more US carriers. AT&T had the early exclusive, but Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile will all be getting versions of their own.
The early details are still coming in, but we do know T-Mobile will have theirs out by the end of this month as they’ve already posted a launch expectancy of January 26th. Sprint and Verizon haven’t yet revealed exact release plans for their expected launches.
The Blackberry Priv was met with warm reception, but some early issues may have caused it from reaching the heights Blackberry is hoping it’ll eventually reach. One of the biggest problems was price — $650 was a lot of money for a device that didn’t seem to provide much more value over something from LG, Motorola, HTC or Samsung.
Availability was also an issue — you could only get it from AT&T or direct through Blackberry themselves, and the unlocked version also doesn’t work on CDMA networks like Sprint and Verizon.
Blackberry will eliminate at least one of those hurdles with this news, but the question then becomes whether it’s too late. Have people already moved on and are looking to the next big phone launch? Or will customer loyalty prevail and there’ll be a horde of would-be buyers waiting to throw their dollars into the cash register? That’s the big question that’ll determine whether Blackberry’s first Android phone turns out to be a runaway success or a disappointing failure. Are you going to grab one when they’re available on your carrier?
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