BlackBerry and Porsche Design are back with the $2350 P’9983 smartphone

By Andy Boxall September 18, 2014

BlackBerry may be struggling to convince us to buy its sensibly priced phones, but that hasn’t stopped it launching another expensive collaboration with Porsche Design. It’s the P’9983, and it follows last year’s P’9982, which was a variation on the Z10 touchscreen phone. This time, the pair have made a return to the QWERTY keyboard, modeling the P’9983 on the BlackBerry Q10.

Porsche Design smartphones are all about style. The body is made from forged stainless steel, and the rear panel is apparently made out of a special glass-weave material. All this may sound flash, but stainless steel and the glass-weave material are also used on the standard Q10, and not unique to the P’9983. Finally, BlackBerry trumpets the use of sapphire glass to keep the camera lens safe from harm.

The P’9983 is considerably more attractive than the basic Q10, and while the chiseled good looks will certainly make it stand out, it isn’t all that different to the old P’9981. Things aren’t so cutting edge when you look closely at the specs either. The touchscreen measures 3.1-inches and has a 720 x 720 pixel resolution, there’s an 8-megapixel camera on the back, a 2-megapixel front cam, and a dual-core 1.5GHz processor inside.

If you’re looking for the technical differences between the P’9983 and the Q10, then it’s all about internal storage space. The Porsche Design phone has 64GB of space, plus a MicroSD card slot to add up to another 128GB, while the Q10 has 16GB, and its MicroSD card slot only supports up to 32GB extra. Both phones have 2GB of RAM, support 4G LTE, and run BlackBerry 10, although the Porsche phone will ship with 10.3 installed.

The exclusive nature of the phone does mean it comes in a pretty box, accompanied by an international charging kit, a stereo headset, and (careful, now) a polishing cloth. Porsche Design will also sell a range of accessories, including Italian leather rear covers. The P’9983 will go on sale in October, and although BlackBerry hasn’t stated the price, according to the Porsche Design website, it’ll be 1,650 euros, or about $2350.

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