The BlackBerry Classic is now available for pre-order

The moderately anticipated successor to the classic BlackBerry Bold will be in people’s hands before the end of the year. During a enterprise focused event in San Francisco on Thursday, BlackBerry announced BlackBerry Classic pre-orders had started. The QWERTY keyboard-equipped phone will cost $449 off-contract and shipping is “expected to start mid-December 2014.” The BlackBerry Classic is running BlackBerry 10, like the recently released BlackBerry Passport, but in a more conventional size and shape. Another major difference is that it’s sporting BlackBerry’s traditional physical keys, including a button to pick up calls, a button to hang up, and the throwback BlackBerry key. Specs aren’t paramount on a device like the Classic, but it will have a 3.5-inch 720 x 720 touchscreen, an 8MP camera on the back, and 16GB of built-in storage. It’s running on a Qualcomm S4 Plus chip.