For the past two years, BlackBerry has enlisted the considerable talents of Porsche Design to develop a rather pricey special edition handset, and it’s happening again with the upcoming P’9983.

First images of the handset, which is codenamed “Khan,” have leaked, and as the comparison image below shows, it looks rather similar in overall profile to the P’9981 from two years back. Granted, what’s actually on (and in) the matte black device proves a bit different.

The Porsche Design BlackBerry P’9983 features a larger, 3.5-inch touchscreen with a dual-core 1.7Ghz processor and 3GB RAM, plus 64GB of internal storage. A full QWERTY keyboard is included, but is said to not have capacitive touch buttons like the upcoming Passport phablet.

N4BB pegs the launch in late Q3 this year, with a price point likely to come in around $2000 (R21,500). That’s not a small chunk of change for a BlackBerry, even with Porsche’s backing thrown in, so we may only see limited numbers landing in SA.

BlackBerry reportedly sees this as a device for “the expectations and purchase behaviours of the affluent and wealthy,” so if that’s you, boy does the company have a smartphone for you this year.

Source: N4BB