Half a year after it was originally introduced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Silent Circle's Blackphone 2 is now available for purchase.
The 5.5-inch Android-based device is focused on privacy and security, delivering a pre-installed suite of apps that lets you make private, encrypted calls, send texts, precisely control what the phone's apps can and cannot access and keep fully separate profiles with different levels of security.
While a few things changed since the phone's launch — for example, its Android-based OS is now called Silent OS instead of PrivatOS, and the company has a new President and CEO, Bill Conner — it is the device we were promised in March, with an octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and a 13-megapixel camera.
Still, while the phone's specs sound capable enough, most people and organizations will be looking at it for its security and privacy features. At the core of these is Silent Phone, which lets users make private voice calls and send encrypted messages (the messaging option was previously separated into an app called Silent Text, which has now been merged with Silent Phone). Other features of note are the ability to remotely wipe the device as well as granular control of how and where the phone's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth can connect.
"People and enterprises want to take back control of their privacy but too often they don’t know how, or they feel they must compromise too much - that’s why the time is right for Blackphone 2,” Conner said in a statement.
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