Call me crazy but I have loved physical keyboards way more than digital ones ever since trying a physical keyboard when I was asked to review the BlackBerry Bold 9900 years ago. So I’ve been waiting for BlackBerry to release their Android phone with a physical keyboard.

The official release date was May 31st and so far only one store in Kuwait has it, and their selling it for a ridiculous 229 KD (it should retail for around 170KD). If you can shell out an extra 60 KD and can’t wait until the price goes down, here’s a [purchase link] to the Mobile 2000 store.

There’s a lot I like about this phone, huge battery life that can go up to two days and a unique custom button that I’ll probably use for quick access to enable the phone’s flashlight. The biggest takeaway however, is that every key can be used as a shortcut. For example, you press T, it opens twitter, F for Facebook and so on.

If anyone knows a store selling the BlackBerry Keyone in Kuwait at a reasonable price, please leave a comment or [contact me].

I passed by X-Cite yesterday to buy some stuff and at random I mentioned the Priv to a staff member and he told me they actually have it. They likely bought a few from the grey market (they only have 6 available at Safat Alghanim) because BlackBerry hasn’t released the Priv in the Middle East, and some of you might notice it has no Arabic on its keyboard.

First Impressions: The phone is bigger than I expected, It has a 5.2 inch screen, but when I put it face to face with my 5.5 inch LG G4, the Priv was actually bigger in size. The keyboard wasn’t as smooth as I hoped but maybe I needed more time with the device.

My biggest issue is the big price difference, the Priv is sold for 212 KD in the US, with shipping it will go for around 220 KD. X-Cite however, is selling it for 259 KD, which is around 40 KD more than ordering it from the US including shipping expenses.

You can purchase it from their website directly [here].

This I can say is the best update to BBM yet, even though it pretty much died out in Kuwait, it still has hope. The new features include the ability to retract a message, that means if you send a message and the other person still hasn’t read it you can still delete it and they will never be able to read it.

It also kind of feels like snapchat because not only can you send pictures that automatically get deleted after a few seconds but you can also send text messages that get automatically deleted as well. You cannot take a screenshot when viewing an image with a timer, your phone won’t let you. You’ll get a similar warning like the below.

Another cool feature I noticed on the new BBM is the ability to request HD images. The thing I hate most about BBM is when you send an image it gets so compressed it looks terrible by the time it reaches the other person. Now you can let me them know you want an HD image and they just accept, it will automatically be sent as HD image.

Download [Android] [iPhone]

Don’t forgot to add my and the blogs BBM Pin: 7EF24ACC

I only know of one way of changing your BBM PIN and it is in most cases costly. You basically have to buy a new device and download BBM Messenger then login with your account. It will automatically generate a new PIN for you but you still have all your contacts. Luckily, I got a pretty cool new PIN (7C873777); you can add the PIN for latest posts or suggest anything.

Android Central managed to leak an image of what the landing page of BBM on Android would look like on BlackBerry’s website. All rumours are pointing to the app launching on both Google Play and Apple’s App Store very soon. I don’t think it will replace WhatsApp in Kuwait but I do think it will have a strong market penetration with time. Ex-BlackBerry users do miss the app.

Click [here] to sign up with BlackBerry, they’ll email you once the app is available.

I must say I’m going to be kinda disappointed if this is all they’re going to announce. I’m hoping today will bring more announcements and I’m going to update this post if they announce more stuff. I hope they’re not thinking crushing the market means laying back and less innovation.

To start of, Kudos to Android for hitting the 900 million active Android devices, not too far from the 1 billion mark which equates to almost 12% of the planets population (if every person had 1 Android device from 900 million). I like that they’re investing into the education of kids with Google Play for Education. Google finally launched Google Play game services and unlike other competitors their service is cross-platform, it will be pretty cool to play against friends that use an iPhone or a BlackBerry. People that know me know I’m not a fan of TouchWiz and what he’s holding up there is a game-changer for me. I loved the Galaxy S4’s beast hardware specs but I didn’t want TouchWiz nor did I want to wait months for an update. So Google announcing a Samsung Galaxy S4 for KD ~185 with stock android (aka vanilla android) is a big plus for me. I might grab one unless Motorola comes out with something impressive.

There’s actually a lot of drama behind this announcement. Two years ago BGR got information that BBM was going to be available on Android and iOS, the news went viral then BlackBerry CEO (now former CEO) explained how BlackBerry has no plans on releasing BBM on other mobile platforms.

Today on a more brighter day, BlackBerry decided they would go ahead with it. It’s very hard not to with cross-platform apps like Whatsapp and Skype having a huge market share, I don’t think BlackBerry had much of a choice. Well I’m happy they’re finally going ahead with it, should be released this summer.[Source]

I’ve been checking StatCounter for a while waiting till Android surpasses iOS because it was just a matter of time. Was pretty clear that Android would dominate when everyone around me suddenly started buying an Android device. I bought my first Android back in 2010, it was the HTC Desire. I didn’t have a blog so I wrote the review on Q8BlackMarket.

Guys in the Diwaniya would make fun it, most people had no idea what an Android was. Initially people thought it was the name of a device, not an operating system. Fast forward to two years and everyone in the Dewaniya switched to Android. There are still a few people in the office using BlackBerry/iPhone but they either bought an Android online waiting for it to ship or are considering buying one.

Right now Android market share is 32% while iOS is 31% in Kuwait (via statcounter). I’m surprised Nokia is going pretty stable while BlackBerry is falling, as expected. I was lucky to order the Nexus 4 before it got sold out in minutes and will likely review it once I have it. Android has gone through a lot and I can’t wait to see what they’ll be introducing next.