‘World’s Most Secure Phone’ Is Blackberry’s Second Attempt at an Android Device

It’s a strange name for a strange phone. Lacking Blackberry’s trademark QWERTY keyboard, Blackberry’s second Android phone is basically a rejiggered TCL Alcatel Idol 4 with a reinforced back plate.

At 7.4mm thick, the DTEK50 is also Blackberry’s thinnest phone.Otherwise, the specs are basically the same and very much uninspired.

As Ars Technica reports, the DTEK50 features a 1.5GHz Snapdragon 617 8 core-processor broken down into four 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53’s and four 1.2 GHz Cortex-A53’s. Beyond that it rocks 3GB of RAM, a mere 16GB of internal storage which can be offset with a microSD, and a 13-MP rear camera with dual LED flash.

The 5.2-inch display and 1080p (424 PPI) display rounds out the middle-of-the-road DTEK50 model, whose only difference with the Alcatel Idol 4 is that the Alcatel phone is actually a little faster.

And, as Engadget tartly notes, the name is pretty awful. Blackberry adds value to this phone with some attractive security peripherals, including a hardware “Root of Trust” which provides end-to-end encryption, hardened OS, and “rapid security patching”, according to Ars Technica.

It also comes with Blackberry’s DTEK security app, which provides users with a rundown of the applications that are accessing your data.

The DTEK50, codenamed “Neon”, will run you about $299.