So earlier, I was sitting here looking back at some of the posts about the BlackBerry Classic and the BlackBerry Passport. Going through it all, it seems as though we've been talking about those two particular devices forever. Realistically, its only been since June that things started popping, when BlackBerry CEO John Chen unveiled the BlackBerry Classic and the BlackBerry Passport. Sure, the rumors have been going longer but the real excitement only came in June, when things got real.

Here we now in the middle of August and we're so very close to the expected September announcement and official release of the BlackBerry Passport. I say announcement and official release because when you think about it, the BlackBerry Passport hasn't even been officially announced as per a normal announcement. There has been no press releases, there has been no official spec sheets, no carrier announcements have been laid out and no pricing details have been put out as of yet. The device has only been 'unveiled' and 'teased' thus far, though from all of the leaks, you'd think it was actually 'official'.

For fans of the BlackBerry Classic, things have been a bit tougher considering the device was actually announced back in February but again, its only been since June that the conversation has been hot. There hasn't been nearly as many leaks surrounding the Classic and the only stuff out there aside from some unofficial Geekbench specs, has all been official from BlackBerry. I suspect when the BlackBerry Passport actually goes official, that will change and we'll start to see more of the long awaited Classic and we're almost there.

Other tidbits:

  • BlackBerry Z20 - By now I'm sure most folks who have been waiting for a Z10 successor have seen the rumors of the BlackBerry Z20. We got sent all the same info as well, however decided to not run it because overall, aside from the "Z20" mention, there's not a lot of details there. No specs, no release date, nothing. Just the Z20 designation. Could it be a new device? Sure. Could it just be a rebadged Z3 with LTE and some spec upgrades? Likely. We'll see what other info comes out in the meantime.

  • CB10 Update - As I mentioned last week on my Editor's desk, we've got an update coming and we're going to try and push that out to everyone at some point this week.

  • Passport and Classic Contest - As we're now a bit closer to the launch of the BlackBerry Passport and even the BlackBerry Classic, it's time to ramp up another contest. We'll have more details on that this week as well. Watch for it!

  • CrackBerry Podcasts - We've not forgotten about podcasts and judging from all the forums posts and emails from folks asking when the next one is, you all haven't either. No BS or excuses here, we've been slacking and really, enjoying what's left of the summer when we can. We'll get things ramped again but you folks know we've always been rather terrible at keeping a schedule on those anyway. To have a consistent schedule would just be a bit weird, the random ones that pop up when it hits us we should do one is more the CrackBerry way.

That's all I got this time around. I hope everyone had a great, refreshing weekend. I pretty much ignored all my emails and such, which was nice. It's always good to disconnect every now and then because sometimes the world is a pretty crazy place. If I missed your email or message, try again because you surely got marked as read and I'm not going back to look. ;)

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