In addition to the above, there are a few other custom touches as well that will help differentiate the BlackBerry Venice in terms of software. This will be BlackBerry’s first venture out of their native operating system and the the device code-named Venice will be the debutante. Earlier this month, live product photos of the phone have been leaked online and they show what the finished product might look like. The device also marks Blackberry’s first steps into making a device exclusively based on Android.

The BlackBerry Venice is one of the leakier handsets in recent memory, showing up in rumor reports, press renders, and hands-on photos.

Of course, the headline feature is its sliding keyboard. Even though Blackberry has added unique pieces of its own software, the phone still resembles much of stock Android, which is a welcome relief. All of this will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 808 running on 3GB of RAM. There was a time when BlackBerry’s OS was very popular across the world, but its popularity has faded over the past few years. While Android-run smartphones captured at least 84 percent of devices sold in the quarter, with Samsung’s Galaxy S6 the best-selling one, a big chunk of the market is from reasonably priced handsets. At the same time, retail customers will be able to enjoy the Google-centric experience expected from Android devices. For example, swiping up from the bottom of your screen not only brings up the typical Google Search app, but you can slide towards the left or right to use Blackberry Device Search or compose a message. The devices are expected to release in November on all four major American carriers. Apart from some pre-installed third-party apps, shortcuts and special widgets for BlackBerry’s services are also evident.