BlackBerry KEYone: Bringing back the Old to New

 

Old guy with New Body

2017 is shaping to be a year of comebacks for smart phone. We have already witnessed the rebirth of Nokia and now it’s time to talk about BlackBerry. Things are rather interesting with The BlackBerry KEYone originally known as “Mercury”. The new BlackBerry KEYone is the latest addition to smartphones industry. Chinese company TCL who now owns BlackBerry’s branding right should be given credit to keeping the old design with new body.

The BlackBerry KEYone defines elegance with probably the most secure applications functionality, one could buy at the market with a sophisticated software and all that in an old-school physical keyboard body.

Return of the old QWERTY

 

BlackBerry is known and famous for its keyboard. Since the emergence of iPhone many handset and phone companies had a tough time to convert to a full screen touch panel in terms of functionality or design. The BlackBerry itself was one of those victims, which fell to all screen system. 

The BlackBerry handsets were stuck in a limbo of all screen or just keyboard design phones in last couple of years. The new BlackBerry KEYone defines the odds and has a combination of 4.5-inch display with a traditional keyboard. Making it something tall and skinny, with the height between a Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+. The result is somewhat astonishing with half the device is pumped with new technology and the rest of it is all new with figure print reader but old keyboard. 

Now if you are not an old school like me than you won’t have any problem using The BlackBerry KEYone whatsoever. As an old fan of the BlackBerry Bold it’s won’t be hard to switch back to KEYone. And the good news is that most application and games will adapt to the new size of the BlackBerry KEYone.

The problem will occur when you are going to watch your favourite movie shows or when you have to take fixed-length photos. On addition The BlackBerry KEYone will have all the help it needs from Android 7.1 Nougat for split-screen multitasking.

Camera

When it comes to camera The BlackBerry KEYone is not far behind from modern smartphone camera trends. The back camera back is a 12MP camera, built with Sony’s leading camera expertise. Its main 12MP camera captures large 1.55um, With T 4K video at 30 frames per second and 1080p at 60fps. 

The front facing camera gets a nicer upgrade compare to normal flagship. It comes with 8 MP camera and selfie experience is above average compare to other flagship devices.

The Soul of KEYone

While the outside of the device represent the pure class and elegance for which BlackBerry is known. The inside of the KEYone is top notched. The software is the biggest reason why BlackBerry KEYone can be come tough rival for its competitors. The stock Android 7.1.1 Nougat is the soul of KEYone, which is not only a joy to use but on top of that you get the extra security benefits, which will keep your personal information safe and secure. With addition of preloaded security application by BlackBerry in KEYone the DTEK app will do a fine job. Not only will it keep an eye on your OS and apps but it will make sure nothing is fishy. From rating of security to protection, you’ll find all of the things DTEK keeps an eye on.  

Similarly, Just like Samsung S8 the highlight is the Bixby. For BlackBerry KEYone the highlight is the Hub Software. Hub combines all of your notifications, messages, calls and events into one location. Which can become handy in terms of going through collectively in your hectic work life.

Specs and performance

The BlackBerry KEYone might not cost as much LG or Samsung but you are getting what you are paying. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core chipset is not the fastest available chipset but it is fast enough to almost all day-to-day work task. 

Then there is the RAM which is 3GB with Adreno 506 graphic chip, which won’t give a smooth frame rates or performance compare to some of the flagship devices. Then again the sole purpose of KEYone is work related activities. They might not matter that much when you are only using KEYone for e-mail and text messaging. 

Last but not least the internal storage also starts with 32GB, not 64GB, and while it has a microSD card slot, it doesn’t turn into a second nano SIM slot for dual-SIM use. 

What gets us is the BlackBerry KeyOne is touted as the best for business users, but has the okay specs of a mid-range phone and no travel-friendly dual-SIM support. 

Money Well Spent?

The KEYone is coming to United States by the end of May 2017 with the Price tag of $549. Now if you are a user who likes to post videos and play heavy games on your smartphones KEYone probably is not your cup of tea. However, it is a handful device when it comes to communication with your friends and co-workers.

BlackBerry really has put some thought when they designed KEYone because it’s different and if you are a person who likes to be different and doesn’t follow the trend than definitely this the phone, which going to fit in that description.