BlackBerry has announced that its Priv smartphone is now available on Verizon, the third of the big four mobile networks in the U.S. that BlackBerry’s inaugural Android device has been made available on.
The Priv first arrived in the U.S., U.K., and Canada in early November, and we said that Android with a hardware keyboard is wonderful in our review at the time. In the intervening months, the Priv has launched in a myriad of markets across Europe, Africa, Australasia, and Asia.
Thus far, the BlackBerry Priv has been limited to AT&T and T-Mobile, so opening to the network with the biggest subscriber base in the U.S. is a notable step for the Canadian mobile phone manufacturer. It just needs to add Sprint, then BlackBerry can lay claim to being available to all of the big four U.S. networks.
The Priv can be purchased online from today starting at $30 per month on a 24-month plan, and it will be landing in stores from March 11.
While BlackBerry has maintained that it hasn’t ditched its own BlackBerry 10 operating system, the company has previously stated that the Priv is its customers transition to Android. Indeed, while BlackBerry is continuing to support BlackBerry devices from a software perspective, it's no immediate plans to introduce any new BlackBerry 10 devices to market, and is expected to add at least two more Android phones to its lineup in the near future.