Brace your wallets for impact, friends, because today BlackBerry officially introduced its latest luxury collaboration with Porsche Design, the P'9982.
The Porsche Design P'9982 is a full-touch BlackBerry 10 device that's described as an "elite" handset with "luxurious, iconic styling." It's got a stainless steel frame and a backside made from hand-wrapped Italian leather, and BlackBerry says that there will also be a special version with a rear cover made of hand-wrapped crocodile leather that will be limited to 500 units. BlackBerry and Porsche Design also plan to sell three custom Italian leather backs for the P'9982 that'll be available in fuchsia, blue and silver.
The "elite" features of the Porsche Design P'9982 from BlackBerry don't stop at the hardware. Like the P'9981 before it, the new Porsche Design P'9982 has its own unique set of PIN numbers to help them stand out from the sea of regular 'Berrys. BlackBerry says that the P'9982 comes with a customized version of its BlackBerry 10.2 OS that includes custom analog and digital Porsche Design clock faces.
So what kind of specs does an "elite" smartphone like the P'9982 feature? According to CNET U.K., it's got the same internals as the BlackBerry Z10 that was launched earlier this year. That means that we're looking at a 4.2-inch 1280x768 touchscreen, 8-megapixel rear and 2-megapixel front cameras, 16GB storage, a microSD card slot and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor.
The Porsche Design P'9982 from BlackBerry is slated to launch this Thursday, Nov. 21, at the Harrods in Knightsbridge, London. The limited edition crocodile model will follow in early December and will only be available at the Porsche Design shop-in-shop at Harrods. As for the price? Neither BlackBerry nor Porsche Design are talking specific numbers, but BlackBerry did confirm that the P'9982 will cost "well over" £1,000 ($1,608 USD.)
Overall this new Porsche Design P'9982 looks like a pretty handsome, well-constructed smartphone, though I suppose its premium materials shouldn't really come as a surprise given its price tag. The P'9982's specs aren't exactly on par with recent high-end Android phones or the new BlackBerry Z30, but I'm betting that many folks that are seriously considering opening their wallets for one of these things don't really obsess over spec lists.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely that most of us will ever see a P'9982 in the flesh, much less actually use one, but the good news is that BlackBerry has put together a brief unboxing video to show off the pricey phone and all of the goodies that come packed inside of its luxurious box. Check out that clip below.
