LAS VEGAS—Security is at the core of BlackBerry's brand, so it's reassuring to hear that the company says it has the recent, globe-girdling Spectre and Meltdown security flaws under control. We met with BlackBerry here at CES and discussed security, its new BlackBerry Motion phone, and future products.

First, though, the flaws. Spectre and Meltdown are industry-wide problems affecting almost all smartphones, PCs, and servers. BlackBerry Mobile's global portfolio head, Gareth Hurn, said Spectre will be dealt with in a January security release for BlackBerry KeyOne and Motion devices, and that Meltdown does not affect the company's phones.

"We are completely committed to updating our product with the latest security patches from Google, and this is done on a monthly basis," said Alain Lejeune, global GM for BlackBerry Mobile.

They better be. Security is one of the pillars of the BlackBerry brand, and it's a key selling point as TCL (the owners of Alcatel) rebuilds the BlackBerry name on store shelves. The first TCL-run BlackBerry branded phone, the KeyOne, rolled out slowly in the US over the last half of this year, a strategy the BlackBerry executives said meant the phone made a smaller public splash than it could have otherwise. Sales are ramping up now, though.

"The US go-to-market has been phased over the whole of '17, which means we probably lacked impact at the start," said Francois Mahieu, BlackBerry's GM for global sales. "The pattern we're seeing with [US] carriers is very interesting … We have enterprise customers saying, 'I'd like to do a proof of concept with your phone' … customers buy just enough units to test, and then the same company [starts] ordering by batches of 20 and 50."

That leaves the KeyOne with some legs in the market, as it's operating on the slower calendar of enterprise rollouts rather than the faster calendar of consumer launches. BlackBerry is promising "two new BlackBerry smartphones" later this year, but it isn't saying whether one of them will be a KeyOne replacement.

Right now, it's refreshing the line a little bit with a bronze-colored, dual-SIM KeyOne for global markets; the launch of the $449 unlocked, full-touch BlackBerry Motion in the US; and some new privacy software which will roll out to both the KeyOne and the Motion.

Hands On With the BlackBerry Motion

The Motion is a slab-style smartphone, with a 5.5-inch touch screen. Mahieu acknowledged that full-touch BlackBerry smartphones have been a lot more popular in countries outside the US, such as the Middle East and Canada, so that's where the company focused its launches first. But it made a good pitch for its differentiating features for small business people.

In the hand, the Motion feels rock solid. It has a textured back and is ribbed around the edge with metal, and it has a "nano-diamond, anti-scratch" 5.5-inch screen. It's not the slimmest, lightest phone—rather, it feels like it can take a beating or a dunking. (It's IP67 water resistant.)

BlackBerry says battery life is the Motion's major selling point. It can go for two days of real use without a charge on its 4,000mAh battery, the execs said.

Some of that battery sipping, of course, comes because of the $449 unlocked phone's midrange specs. It's running a Snapdragon 625 processor, like the KeyOne, along with a 1080p LCD screen, and 12MP main and 8MP front cameras. There's 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, along with a MicroSD card slot.

It's running Android 7.1.1 (an Oreo update is coming, but as we said before, at least it's getting security updates) with a heavy load of custom BlackBerry applications. You shouldn't complain—you're here for the custom apps, especially BlackBerry Hub, which integrates various forms of messaging into a unified inbox.

The Motion also comes with some interesting privacy-related software. It's all stuff that could have third-party alternatives, but it's good to see it preloaded. An on-device "locker" lets you hide files and photos you don't want uploaded to the cloud. A "privacy shade" app lets you read the screen a line at a time to hide sensitive information from onlookers. There's a password manager built in now, too. These apps will also roll out to the KeyOne in an update, the execs said.

The Motion is only compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile, for now, and its LTE band complement is conservative; it has a good selection of AT&T, T-Mobile, and roaming bands, but not T-Mobile's new Band 71. The phone will probably work on Verizon's LTE network if you put a Verizon SIM in, but Mahieu said he wasn't making any guarantees on that.

"We hope to bring more products onto the Verizon network in 2018," Lejeune said.

The new BlackBerry Mobile, under TCL's umbrella, has only been around for 10 months, the execs pointed out. As part of a relatively successful business—TCL is a big TV maker, and Alcatel chugs along as the No. 4 or No. 5 US smartphone maker—BlackBerry can afford to be cautious about the US market, Mahieu said.

"Realistically, we'll take a little bit of time to make sure we listen to the market requirements carefully," he said. "This we're doing with Motion, is something we're learning a great deal from. The door is open to much more in the future."