Everyone remembers Blackberry phones for their bold design and QWERTY keyboards, but as the industry moved to touchscreens Blackberry failed to evolve. Blackberry tried to get back into the smartphone game last year by launching the Blackberry Priv, DTEK50, and DTEK60. But it failed to impress the audience. This year in 2017, TCL showcased a new smartphone at CES codenamed Blackberry Mercury, but we didn’t have exact details of the device. And today at MWC 2017 Blackberry has finally unveiled the the device as Blackberry KEYone. The device is designed by BlackBerry and is made by TCL Communication Technology.
The Blackberry KEYone features a 4.5-inch display with 3:2 aspect ratio and has a 4-row QWERTY physical backlit keyboard with keys that respond to touch gestures. There are up to 52 customizable shortcuts and the keyboard supports flick typing. There is also a fingerprint sensor built into the spacebar. The device runs on Android 7.1 (Nougat) with security and productivity suite from BlackBerry.
The BlackBerry KEYone will be available globally starting in April and is priced at US$ 549 / 599 Euros / 499 GBP / INR 36,590 (approx.) depending on the market.
BlackBerry KEYone specifications
- Dimensions: 149.3 x 72.5 x 9.4mm | Weight: 180g
- 4.5-inch (1620 x 1080 pixels) | 3:2 display | 433 PPI
- 2GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 processor | Adreno 506 GPU
- 3GB RAM | 32GB internal storage (expandable memory up to 2TB with microSD)
- Android 7.1 (Nougat)
- 12MP rear camera | Sony IMX378 sensor | 1.55μm pixel size | 1/2.3″ sensor size | f/2.0 | PDAF
- 8MP front-facing camera | 1.12µm pixel size | f/2.2 aperture
- Fingerprint sensor | 3.5mm audio jack | 4G LTE | FM Radio | USB 3.1 Type-C | NFC
- Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4 & 5 GHz) | Bluetooth 4.2 | GPS / GLONASS, ,
- 3505mAh battery | Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0
