BlackBerry chief executive officer John Chen recently confirmed that a new BlackBerry smartphone is slated to be released next month. The CEO added that two less expensive models will be released before the end of the year, and there are rumors claiming that the Chinese tech company TCL will be responsible for manufacturing one of them.

Like Us on Facebook

Chen said that the two upcoming lower end smartphones will be based on the high-end BlackBerry Priv smartphone. One of them will sport a physical keyboard, while the other one will have full touchscreen interface.

The full touchscreen model is rumored to debut as early as July. Lately, an unnamed TCL device sporting the product name DTEK 50 was certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. What is interesting is that DTEK is the name of the private firm that ships the BlackBerry Priv, a fact that fuel speculations that it might be referring to the touchscreen smartphone that Chen earlier confirmed.

Additionally, the TCL device has a model number that reads STH100-2. This naming scheme is similar to BlackBerry's naming scheme. The BlackBerry Priv's model number is STV100-1.

The latest rumor also corroborated with an older speculation claiming that BlackBerry and TCL have signed an agreement. The result of the newly formed partnership was the BlackBerry Hamburg, a new smartphone based on the Alcatel Idol 4.

A handful of leaks reveal that the BlackBerry Hamburg has a 5.2-inch display with 1080p resolution. Powering it is the Snapdragon 615 chipset from Qualcomm. Coincidentally, the Alcatel Idol 4 has the exact screen size and resolution as the Hamburg, but instead of the Snapdragon 615, it is powered by the Snapdragon 617. Several other sources also reveal quite a lot of similarities between the Alcatel Idol 4 and the BlackBerry Hamburg.

If these rumors are true, then the upcoming BlackBerry Hamburg will just be a rebranded Alcatel Idol 4 that runs on a different system-on-chip.

TagsTCL, Blackberry, BlackBerry Hamburg, Smartphone, TCL smartphone, Alcatel, Alcatel Idol, Alcatel Idol 10