All Hands on Tech - BlackBerry KeyOne review By ITWC

You ever look back with nostalgia at exactly one decade ago. I know that I do uh 2007 I was a young man of 24, with a full head of hair. I was living life instead of posting selfies to Facebook I waited in line all night long to buy the Nintendo Wii on opening day I rushed to the bookstore to get the last volume of the Harry Potter series and I did it all with the BlackBerry in my pocket you see, 2007 was also the year Apple released the iPhone. Looking back. We all know how that story went for Canada's, smartphone maker. It all seems so long ago, but lately I've been feeling like it's 2007 all over again.

Ever since I picked up the BlackBerry key, one I haven't been tempted to go back to my iPhone, even once sure it wasn't made by the Waterloo based company, but it does have its seal of approval and I sort of feel like it's, the BlackBerry that I've always wanted. I'm Brian Jackson welcome to all hands on tech. This fold is made by TCL communication, the Chinese manufacturer that made the D Tech blackberries over the past year, but the key one is a clear step above that for me, its top to your performance delivered on Android 7.1. It has a super-sized battery that lasts all day. It has expandable storage but, most importantly, it has a lot of buttons.

Ever since the iPhone was launched with just one hard button, it's been the trend to have as few buttons on a smartphone as possible, but the key one embraces buttons: there's the usual power button and volume rocker, but there's also a convenience key that you can program to do whatever you want. I set mine to launch the camera. Now I can capture that perfect moment even more quickly. The volume up button doubles as the camera shutter. The QWERTY keyboard is a real treat here.

The whole thing fits snugly into the bottom of this candy bar design. The dividing frets between the rows make it a recognizable Blackberry keyboard, it's not necessarily faster than typing on a touchscreen, especially if you're good at swipe typing, but I find it much more. Accurate and I really value that every number or character you'd want to type is an alt press or shift press away. I love using the quick key shortcuts on the key one, with just the press of a button I can launch my favorite note-taking app call my fianc?e email, my boss, or add an event to my calendar. It's the shortcut actions that make this so useful cutting down.

So many steps on the task to perform most often is a great productivity boost by the way the fingerprint scanner is on the keyboard too. It's in the space bar. The key one also works great as a speakerphone I've been doing interviews with it, and the speaker is really nice and loud, plus, pressing that convenience key will mute you during a call for me, that's a quick way to save my interview from having to listen to me type, having a keyboard on the device and super long battery life does mean there are other sacrifices TCL had to make here. The latest smartphones are offering really wide screens. The most common scenario is 16 to 9, but we're also seeing two to one more often.

The key ones for point 5-inch screen is the three to two aspect ratios. It's also not the highest-quality screen on the smartphone market. For me, it was totally serviceable, and I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. But if you use your smartphone to watch a lot of videos or play games, the key one probably isn't for you to make the battery life lasts a long time. TCL also went with the mid-range processor.

Again. I found it great for everything that I want to do. But if you're looking to play 3d games or use augmented reality apps, it might hit a wall. The build quality is perfect. I, like the aluminum casing, and the textured back, it just seems very solid and durable.

Even the camera is great back in 2007 blackberry users, sort of accepted their photos just weren't that good, but on the key one you're getting the same great Sony lens used on the Google Pixel, the back camera is 12 megapixels and the front camera has a wide-angle lens and is 8 megapixels. The camera app even has a fun slo-mo feature: that's easy to activate and easy control over the exposure settings. These are mid-range specs, wrapped up in a premium package from the shortcut Laden keyboard to the secure blackberry, infused Android software. The key one is a beast for getting work done it's available in Canada for $199 on a two-year subscription from all the major carriers. I'm Brian Jackson, thanks for watching all hands on tech.

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Source : ITWC