Recent rumors pertaining to a new Blackberry Android-based smartphone have been circulating around the web. Now new reports that just showed up are suggesting that the Canadian smartphone maker Blackberry Ltd. is planning to launch a new smartphone, dubbed the Blackberry Prague, that will run on the Android operating system and is expected to be released this coming August.

Rumors of another smartphone with the codename Blackberry Venice has also showed up online and is expected to run on the Android operating system as well.

But according to a report by N4BB.com, the Blackberry Venice, which is expected to be launched this November, won't be coming out with the platform as previously rumored.

Tech Radar reported that the new Blackberry Venice smartphone is expected to come with a slider, a 5.4 inch Quad HD display screen along with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 808 processor.

Earlier rumors had also suggested that Blackberry is planning to work with Samsung Electronics on a new Android device, but this hasn't been confirmed yet, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.

The new Blackberry Prague is expected to be a low-end smartphone that will be based on the Canadian company's budget smartphone Blackberry Z3, according to reports. The Blackberry Z3 runs on the Blackberry OS and was just launched last May 2014.

Blackberry has been lagging behind these past few years and is trying to catch up, as tech giants Apple Inc. and Google are currently dominating the market with their mobile operating systems. This is probably the reason why Blackberry is now planning to launch a new device with the Android platform.

International Business Times recently reported that Blackberry may have planned to take this route in an effort to regain its strength, as 81.5 per cent of last year's 1.3 billion shipments were devices that run on the Android operating system.