The BlackBerry Priv is nice. It really is! As the company's first full Android device it's impressive, and it's a downright godsend for all those users who've been starved for a high-end phone with a physical keyboard since the DROID 4 came out four freakin' years ago. But it's also expensive. At $700 in the US, it's among the priciest phones on the market... and BlackBerry's falling star in the smartphone world means that they can't afford to play at the same level as Samsung and Apple, at least not yet.

Someone up in Canada seems to have realized this, because they decided to give the Priv a permanent price shiv. (Sorry.) Now it's $650, a little more palatable even for the suit-and-tie set. The company's official blog says that the price drop also extends to the UK and Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands), where the new prices are £529 and €729, respectively. Oddly absent from that list is Canada, where the price of the unlocked model is a whopping $899 (approximately $680 USD).

This price drop doesn't necessarily apply to phones sold through carriers - here in the US, Verizon and T-Mobile still sell the phone for $720 outright, and AT&T is even more expensive at $740. But since carriers like to sell stuff as much as anyone else, expect them to get in line before too long.

Source: BlackBerry blog