Blackberry has been through a rough patch from changing its name from RIM, halting its production of phones and licencing it to TCL. They have also embraced Android by launching the Priv, DTEK 50 and the DTEK 60 which was a move after ditching their own Blackberry OS.
Well on Saturday, they announced the Blackberry KEYone and it is unmistakably a Blackberry phone thanks to its angular looks and that famous keyboard.
The phone looks rather attractive with an angular look of metal and glass. The front bears a 4.5″ 1620 x 1080p IPS display with a 3:2 ratio (perfect for reading emails or surfing the web) covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 4.
The physical keyboard has auto correction, next word prediction and it is touch sensitive which will make it easy to browse, read or write with. You will be able to program it with upto 52 shortcuts and they have been able to integrate a fingerprint sensor directly into the keyboard spacebar for security.
The phone also sports a rather healthy battery capacity of 3505mAH which they claim that it can be charged to 50% in 36 minutes. It is powered by the mid-range Snapdragon 625 SoC backed by a healthy 3GB RAM. The cameras on the phone are not too bad either with a 12MP camera at the back that seems to be the one on the Pixel on paper and a standard 8MP camera at the front
Here is a table of its specifications.
| Display | 4.5" 1620 x 1080 IPS LCD |
| SoC | Snapdragon 625, Adreno 506 GPU |
| Storage | 32GB + MicroSD |
| RAM | 3GB RAM |
| Primary Camera | 12MP f2.0, 1.55μm pixels, 4K video recording |
| Secondary Camera | 8MP with flash |
| Android version | 7.1 Nougat |
| Battery | 3505mAh |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 4.2 LE, NFC, Wi-Fi, 2G/3G/4G, GPS |
| Misc | fingerprint sensor, Blackberry security software, Convenience key, USB Type-C (USB 3.1), FM Radio |
Now the price. Blackberry says that it will sell at or under $549 when it becomes available in April which is rather a steep price for a phone that does not have the flagship processors like the Snapdragon 821 or 835. However, this looks like it is targeted at those people who want the Blackberry aesthetic (keyboard, attending to emails and security) while still not feeling like they are too behind.
