BlackBerry has taken the wraps off its latest smartphone, touting tough security features and a touch-screen running on Android software.

At US$299, the model DTEK50 is priced for mid-market users, cutting in half the original retail cost of BlackBerry’s first Android phone, the Priv. The phone is BlackBerry’s latest attempt to leverage its security and relationships with big corporate and government customers in a bid to make its shrinking device division profitable even as consumers increasingly abandoned the Blackberry range of gadgets.

CEO John Chen has said he expects the unit to reach profitability by September. The division contributes about 40 percent of the company’s revenue.