Customers in the United States can now pre-order the BlackBerry Classic also called BlackBerry Q20, the upcoming flagship handset from the Canadian smartphone manufacturer, which boasts a complete physical QWERTY keyboard under its self-effacing screen.

On that note, consumers can pre-order the unlocked BlackBerry Classic version and, therefore, no contract or carrier restrictions are involved.

However, people buying a BlackBerry handset for the first time should know that this smartphone only supports GSM carriers. Hence, the BlackBerry Classic will not work under Verizon, Sprint, and U.S Cellular network. Therefore, the choices of potential buyers are limited to AT&T and T-Mobile.

As far as the price is concerned, the BlackBerry Classic comes with a price tag of $449. Nevertheless, the company has stated that it will announce the release date of the device at a launch event on Dec. 17.

In fact, BlackBerry, which is hoping that the device will help the company revive its staggering smartphone market profits, has adopted an unusual strategy - allowing the customers to pre-order the device first and launch it later.

An announcement on the company's website states that the shipment of the pre-ordered device would begin in mid-December.

In terms of specs, the BlackBerry Classic comes with a 3.46-inch display screen with 720 x 720 pixels resolution and a pixel density of 291 ppi. The device is powered by a dual-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8960 SoC and supported by an excellent 2 GB of RAM configuration. As far as the software is concerned, BlackBerry Classic runs on BlackBerry 10.3 OS and the company will allow upgrades to the newest BlackBerry OS version 10.3.1 soon.

The BlackBerry Classic sports an 8 MP rear-facing camera with LED flash and a 2 MP front-facing secondary snapper, especially meant for selfies. It comes with a 16 GB of in-built storage which can be expanded up to 128 GB using a microSD card support. The handset is equipped with a solid Li-Ion 2,515 mAh battery unit. Apart from the standard connectivity options, the BlackBerry Classic supports NFC and LTE.