Wi-Fi certification hints that the BlackBerry Hamburg could be a re-branded TCL Alcatel Idol 4

TCL, the company that produces the Alcatel line of smartphones, is possibly re-branding one of its Alcatel handsets with the BlackBerry name. This would dovetail perfectly with a recent comment made by BlackBerry CEO John Chen, who called the company a hardware design house that designs but doesn't manufacture product. He also alluded to new deals with manufacturers more efficient than Foxconn. You might recall that BlackBerry had a deal with Foxconn for the latter to design, manufacture, market, and sell BlackBerry handsets. 

Now, it would appear that BlackBerry has a deal with TCL. Documentation from the Wi-Fi Alliance shows that Wi-Fi certification has been awarded to a TCL handset called the DTEK-50, powered by Android 6.0. The connection to BlackBerry? That would start with the DTEK name. DTEK is the security and privacy app found on the BlackBerry Priv. Also, the model number of the unannounced device is listed on the Wi-Fi certification as STH100-2. The Priv's model number is STV100-1.

According to Crackberry, it had heard a previous rumor last month that it characterized as "shady." This rumor said that BlackBerry was working with TCL to produce a version of the Alcatel Idol 4 with BlackBerry branding. This would be the phone with a code name of  BlackBerry Hamburg. With this new information at our fingertips, we went back to an alleged GFXBench benchmark test of the BlackBerry Hamburg from last month, and found that the specs matched those of the Alcatel Idol 4.  It isn't clear whether BlackBerry would add some of its own hardware design to this phone. Chen's comments about BlackBerry being a hardware design house would seem to indicate that the company will be designing some of its future handsets, if not the Hamburg.


This means that the Hamburg should feature a 5.2-inch screen with a 1080 x 1920 resolution, and carry the Snapdragon 617 SoC under the hood. The latter should contain an octa-core 1.7GHz CPU with the Adreno 405 GPU. 3GB of RAM will be inside along with 16GB of native storage (10GB available to the user). A 512GB capacity microSD slot is available for those who need additional storage. The camera combo from back to front is 13MP/8MP, and a 2610mAh battery keeps the lights on.

Even though this all seems to click, keep your cynical eye open until we get an announcement from BlackBerry.


source: Crackberry