BlackBerry PRIV available for pre-order in Canada

The first Android based smartphone from the vendor can now be purchased by Canadians.

Canadians have now become the first consumers to be able to buy a BlackBerry PRIV in advance of its release, which is expected to occur in mid-November, though the company has yet to officially release a launch date.

The PRIV will be the first BlackBerry handset to be based on Google’s Android operating system.

This device has now been opened up for preorders within the Canadian market. Though there is no date published for the release of the BlackBerry PRIV, the company is hoping that consumers will start to get on board in buying the device ahead of time, when they know that there is an imminent launch date ahead – even if they don’t know exactly when that will be. This will represent the first time a smartphone from the company will be running on an operating system that was developed by a company other than itself.

The company is hoping that the BlackBerry PRIV will help to revive its floundering handset sales.

Since there is a relatively small BlackBerry customer base at the moment, the majority of developers have stopped creating mobile apps for that operating system. Instead, they have chosen to develop apps for Apple’s iOS and for Google’s Android, where the markets are exponentially larger. This drop in app available has caused BlackBerry to lose a tremendous amount of interest from customers.

Recently, it attempted to create a new appeal for its devices by making it possible for Android apps to be run on BlackBerry 10 through the Amazon app store. However, that didn’t produce the results for which they were hoping.

Now, the BlackBerry PRIV will take this effort a step further by dropping the BlackBerry operating system and using Android, instead, while still providing the hardware features that consumers have come to enjoy from the company. In this way, consumers will be able to use the brand’s smartphone but will still be able to download apps from Google Play, which offers far more applications and a much larger number of favorites than the company’s own offerings.