After the initial announcement of the BlackBerry KEYone at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) earlier this year, BlackBerry fans who have been hanging on to their Passports, Classics (or Privs) once again got excited for two reasons. First, they were happy to know that BlackBerry had not put its smartphone plans to rest and secondly, that there is now another BlackBerry device to look up to, one that should successfully merge Android with the true BlackBerry experience that was once BlackBerry OS.
With the launch of the BlackBerry KEYone Limited Edition Black in India, I was just looking out for two key improvements: The capacitive keyboard and BlackBerry’s integration with Android. Because, frankly speaking, there’s not much that would help BlackBerry differentiate its product from a Samsung, HTC or even a OnePlus smartphone out there; especially when you keep in mind its Rs 39,990 price tag
Strangely, there were a lot more improvements, but it all boils down to one essential BlackBerry element, its keyboard.
Build and Design: 8/10
I fell in love with the design of the BlackBerry KEYone when it was first announced at the MWC earlier this year. The Limited Edition Black launched in India is no different and the unit I received for review comes from TCL as well. So apart from the Black finish, the 4 GB RAM and 64 GB of storage options, there’s really not much of visual difference between the two models.
Body
The design looks pretty good. It is however very subjective. I came across a couple of smartphone users who said that it looked old and dated. When I asked them why, they simply pointed to the keyboard on the front. “Who uses a keyboard on a smartphone these days?” went the common refrain.
Others, especially BlackBerry fans, drooled over its design and appreciated the finish and quality. Add to this the heft at 180 grams that adds to the premium feel.
On the front, there’s the camera lens at the top with a glass insert for the sensors. Down below is the Gorilla Glass covered display. On the back is camera lens and then a centrally-aligned BlackBerry logo a little below that.
Next up is the rubberised back that does a good job at keeping your KEYone in your hand. This is a necessity as the location of keyboard is at the bottom of the phone. Had there been a metal back like on normal smartphones, the KEYone would keep slipping off and flipping out of your hand while typing on the keyboard.
As for every other bit that I have not mentioned above, it uses metal.
All-in-all, the design of the BlackBerry KEYone sure left me impressed, it had a mix of sharp and rounded corners at the right places and the multi-textured surfaces brings back memories of the good old days of creative smartphone design, which is basically the era before Apple showed up
Keyboard
The Keyboard of the KEYone is good, but BlackBerry or TCL (or Optiemus) could have done better. The keys feature better travel compared to the previous Priv, so they don’t bottom out that easy. But they do feel spongy. In short, they still do not match the physical keyboard of the BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900
Typing was a bit of a problem, because the keyboard has a short height, as I often ended up pressing two keys initially, but after a few days I began to find them accurately thanks to muscle memory. The keyboard could have been taller, but BlackBerry wanted a taller display, so they seemed to have compromised on the keyboard to allow for a device that actually works fine with one-handed use.
BlackBerry has also made the keyboard capacitive. Just like the Priv, you can swipe in two directions to switch tabs in an app (if it’s enabled) or scroll through lists (chats, emails, images and more). It sounds like a great idea, but in reality, it’s not well thought out (more about this in Performance).
The keyboard by far is the best one you can get on an Android smartphones these days (there’s really no competition). So if it’s a keyboard you are after, then you have no choice but to look at the KEYone.
Features: 7.5/10
The BlackBerry KEYone features a 4.5-inch IPS LCD display with an odd, 3:2 screen ratio covered by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4. Below it sits the capacitive keys for navigation. Inside, you get an unusual candidate for a flagship smartphone, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 that is clocked at the usual 2 GHz. Flagships are expected to carry an 800-series Snapdragon chip, or its equivalent. There’s 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage that can be expanded using the hybrid SIM tray by inserting microSD cards of up to 2 TB in capacity.
As for the other highlight of KEYone, it is the rear-facing camera. The unit is the Sony IMX378, which is the same camera module that also came in the Google Pixel (which was pretty good). The camera includes a 12 MP sensor with Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) and a lens with an f/2.0 aperture. It lacks OIS so the camera heavily relies on EIS for both video and still images. The front-facing camera is an 8 MP unit with an f/2.2 aperture but comes with a fixed focus lens setup.
Display
| Form Factor | Bar |
|---|---|
| Screen Type | IPS LCD Capacitive Touchscreen |
| Screen Size | 4.5 inches |
| Screen Resolution | 1620 x 1080 |
Processor
| Processor | Octa Core |
|---|---|
| Speed | 2.0 GHz |
Memory
| Internal Memory | 32GB, 3GB RAM |
|---|---|
| Extendable Memory | 2TB |
Camera Features
| Sensor Resolution | 12MP |
|---|---|
| Features | Phase Detect Auto Focus (PDAF), Fast focus lock, Dual Tone LED Flash-Enhanced photo colour balance, Continuous & touch to focus, Face detection, Electric image stabilisation, Panorama, Burst, Live Filters, Multi-Frame Low Light Enhancement |
| Digital Zoom | 4x |
| Front facing camera | 8MP |
General Features
| OS | Android 7.1 (Nougat) |
|---|---|
| FM Radio | Yes |
| Bluetooth Features | 4.2 (LE) and EDR |
| Dual Sim Support | Yes |
| Messaging | SMS, MMS, Email |
| GPS | Yes, GLONASS, BeiDou2 |
| USB Connector | Yes |
| NFC | Yes |
| Available Colours | Black |
Carrier Networks
| 2G | GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz |
|---|---|
| 3G | WCDMA 2100 MHz |
| 4G | Yes |
Data
| EGPRS or EDGE | Yes |
|---|---|
| WiFi | 802.11b/g/n 2.4 GHz |
Body
| Dimensions | 72.5 x 9.4 x 149.3 mm |
|---|---|
| Weight(grams) | 180 grams |
Sound
| Media Player | Music formats: MPEG-4, AAC+, AAC-LC, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, DivX, EVRC, FLAC, H.263, H.264, H265/HEVC, MIDI, MP3, OPUS, PCM, QCELP, VORBIS, VP8, VP9, Xvid, eAAC+ |
|---|---|
| Speakerphone | Yes |
| Audio connector | 3.5mm |
Battery
| Type | Li-Ion |
|---|---|
| Capacity(mAh) | 3505 mAH |
Miscellaneous Features
| Built in Applications | Gmail - Duo - Google Chrome - Google Drive - Google Maps - YouTube - Google Play - Photo - Messenger (SMS) - Clock - News & Weather - Play Music - Play Movies - Google (Search, Voice Search) - Downloads - Docs - Sheets Slides |
|---|
After Sales Service
| Warranty Period | 1 Year |
|---|
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