Just last week, BlackBerry pulled the Classic smartphone out of the bag, bringing back the company’s famous physical QWERTY keyboard attached to a 3.5-inch touchscreen.

Well, BlackBerry is also prepping an all-touch smartphone which should appeal to more modern smartphone users.
BlackBerry Rio won't be as exciting as we hoped it would be

The device’s name leaked a while ago, so we know it has been codenamed “Rio” but apart from that, we didn't have any idea on how the smartphone will be specced. Wishful thinkers hurried to assert that Rio will be the company’s next flagship.

That was the desired scenario, but unfortunately it won’t happen. The folks at N4BB managed to get ahold of the handset’s specifications, which reveal that Rio will be a pretty mid-range device.

Rio seems to represent an evolution from the Manitoba project (or the Z3 LTE) which got cancelled, but that doesn't mean BlackBerry’s new handset will arrive boasting something really disruptive.

The device will come equipped with a 5-inch with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. It will be powered by a MSM 8960 dual-core CPU clocked at 1.5GHz and fitted with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of flash storage (expandable via the microSD card).

The handset will take advantage of two cameras (8MP on the back and 2MP up in front) and will have Penta Band LTE + 4G Hotspot, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n, BT 4.0 / DLNA /Miracast, dual microphone and speaker phone.

Rio will be kept alive by a 2800 mAh non-removable battery and will have a 9.4mm / 0.3 inches profile. Given today’s standard (the world’s thinnest smartphone, the Vivo X5 Max has 4.77 mm / 0.18 inches), the upcoming BlackBerry is quite chunky.

Hopefully, Rio will be affordable

What still remains unknown at the moment is Rio’s price tag, but given what we see above, BlackBerry should probably keep it lower than $300 / €244.

So it appears that for the time being we should abandon hope over BlackBerry releasing an all-touch high-end handset, as it seems the company has its heart set only on handsets like the Passport (with a QWERTY keyboard) when it comes to this category.

In other news, the BlackBerry Classic went official just a few days before as an attempt to attract die-hard BlackBerry fans back into the company's arms.

The handset takes advantage of a 3.5-inch touchscreen display and draws power from a pretty outdated dual-core Qualcomm processor working in concert with 2GB of RAM. The smartphone runs BlackBerry 10.3.1 OS and is being marketed for $450 / €351 (the unlocked version) a pop.