Blackberry has been relegated to the footnote section of the smartphone world, so it was a bit surprising to see them come out with a new product offering positioned at the extreme top end of the pricing spectrum. Or perhaps not so surprising, given their affiliation with Porsche; perhaps their new strategy is to appeal to the high end customers and let everyone else have the mass market. That certainly seems to be the case based on this latest offering.

Under The Hood

There's nothing in the technical specifications that leap out at you and scream as a justification for the high price tag. Among its core features the phone sports:

A smallish, 3.1 inch display screen. In the world if 5+ inch displays, this is nothing to write home about
2GB of RAM – respectable, but again, not over the top, and memory is cheap.
Two cameras, one 8 megapixels and the other 2 megapixels. This is sub par by today's smartphone standards.
64GB storage capacity – again, nothing noteworthy here

So What Is It Then?

Well, one thing that does stand out is its appearance. The phone's chassis is composed of stainless steel and features a glass-weave technology for the back panel. In addition, it has a sapphire-glass coating protecting the camera lens as well as the Porsche logo elegantly displayed above the screen.

Of course, being a Blackberry, it kept its signature keyboard and stylus, but this keyboard sports glass-like keys which provide the user with a 3D-effect, on the other hand the keyboard has the durability of a synthetic material so it really is the best of both worlds.

Porsche has been including their branding on many Blackberry hand-held device for the previous decade, but how much longer will this go on? After all, business has never been better for Porsche and they have even just released the Macan which has quickly become very popular. On the other hand, Blackberry's market share is expected to drop below 1% next year. So is it really a wise move from Porsche to be so closely affiliated with a brand that might not be around for much longer?

Whatever the future ultimately holds for Blackberry, it seems clear that they've adopted many of Porsche's basic marketing techniques. This phone won't appeal to everyone. Technically, it comes in a bit light, although its appearance is certainly striking. If form matters more than function for you, this just might be the perfect phone. If performance matters, you can get a lot more phone for a lot less money, speaking purely from a technical perspective.

In a way, you could almost look at this as Blackberry's last gasp. Having been essentially shut out of the mass market for phones, they're putting all their remaining chips on the table for one final bet, in hopes that this high dollar phone can carry them. Will it? That remains to be seen, and it is certainly true that people have written Blackberry off more times than can be reliably counted, only to be proved wrong later and be made to eat a significant portion of humble pie.

That said, the reality is that Blackberry's market share is hovering close to zero. There's no way of sugar coating that, and this new phone won't do anything to raise that number to any significant degree.