The troubled Canadian smartphone maker looks set to continue fighting against reports that it is on the way out with the release of at least one more device.

BlackBerry had previously said it would be ending smartphone production earlier this year, before CEO John Chen later fuelled hopes of a recovery.

The phone could well be the rumoured ‘Mercury’ device first uncovered earlier this year.

The Geekbench results suggets that the device could come packing a Qualcomm octa-core chipset clocked at 2GHz, alongside and 3GB of RAM.

This puts it firmly in the mid-range Android smartphone category, as BlackBerry looks to strenghten its position in developing Eastern markets.

Earlier reports suggested that the Mercury, which will launch early next year, will also come sporting a 4.5 inch Full HD display, 32GB internal storage, 18-megapixel rear and 8-megapixel front cameras and a 3,400mAh battery.

It will now outsource the design and building of smartphones to third party companies around the world, as it looks to focus on other areas.

However CEO John Chen surprised industry experts by saying that BlackBerry may yet still build a new device featuring the company’s iconic QWERTY keyboards.

However even this was beset by setbacks, as BlackBerry suffered the embarrassment of having the world’s most popular messaging app – WhatsApp – drop support for its BlackBerry OS earlier this year.

Facebook and its Messenger app soon followed suit and stopped working on BlackBerry OS, including the most recent – BB10, by the end of the year.

Last October, BlackBerry signalled a major shift in its intentions by switching to using Android in its smartphones over its own BB10 software.

[Source:-Express]