Canadian smartphone company, Blackberry showed us back in 2017 that physical keyboard on a smartphone can be fun. However, its usefulness is doubtful and also, the people actually looking for such a smartphone is also small in number. Come 2018 and we have rumours about the Blackberry Athena. Blackberry Athena is another smartphone by the company with their trump card. That is a physical keyboard. This might be officially the KEYone successor. This time with the spacebar sporting a Blackberry logo and a dual camera setup at the back.
The alleged renders show the biggest change to the Keyboard and the camera setup at the back. The last year's KEYone sported the same sensor as the Google Pixel. This year, the renders show a dual camera setup at the back. Also, the keyboard has a bit of a matte finish. Rest of the design looks almost the similar.
Few of the other slightly less noticeable design changes are the size of the front camera. It is now smaller. Also, the front speaker is a single piece instead of a grille on the KEYone. The size management will give the Athena more display to work with. However, we cannot confirm this as of now.
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The design on the back is almost similar to the Limited Edition Black KEYone, apart from that dual camera setup. However, some people claim that the upper part is leather instead of black anodised aluminium.
However, not everything is good about the Athena. The renders show the Power button, volume rocker and convenience key to be on the same side. Expect a lot of complaint on accidental key presses. Also, the capacitive buttons from the KEYone make a return. The company can easily move the buttons on the screen and increase the display size. Also, the keyboard can offer navigation shortcuts, eliminating the need for those buttons.
Finally, Athena's renders show the USB Type-C along with a headphone jack. Its good to see the headphone jack still present. However, we still don't know Athena's price tag. So we don't know how it will stack up against the Ghost and Ghost Pro. However, guessing by the KEYone, it will be a mid rager device.
