BlackBerry KEY2 first impressions By Neowin

Hey guys I'm rich from Neil win today, we're talking about the BlackBerry key ?, so normally I would do my regular unboxing, but um I've actually had this phone for a close to a week. Now so wouldn't be fair to just do a first impressions video when the embargo lifts and also I really I recorded that video and I spent the majority of the time complaining about the Android out of box experience, which is frankly terrible and since we are taking sort of a second impression, look right now, it's worth mentioning that it is terrible, and it's its! The outer box is better than some other Android phones, but it's also once you get into it. There's a ton of apps that are just giving you pop-ups to show you what they do, and you know that whole thing and asking permissions all over the place. It's its really a mess, but luckily it's not a big deal, because most users only go through it once, but it is worth mentioning. So this is the BlackBerry key -. That's just I got a pop-up when I just brought it up so anyway.

This is the blackberry pizza, the space bar here that doubles as a fingerprint reader alright, and we do have the physical keyboard that blackberry is known. For now, the processor included is the snapdragon 660 Qualcomm has various tiers of processors, are the 200 400, 600 and 800? Previously there was, and the 200 is the very low-end the 400 is meant to be the lower mid-range. The 600 series was the upper mid-range and then there's the 800 series for premium handsets now. This won't cost $649. But, however, the 600 series has kind of two tiers is the 630 is and the this is the 660.

So this is an outscore processor. Cry 260 is an adrenal 512 GPU, so Qualcomm actually makes these processes for high-end phones. Now it's differentiating between high-end and premium. Now that the 660 is kind of turning into that snap dry and 700 rains that are recently announced, okay, because the fact is that most people don't need a phone with the Snapdragon 808 45 processors. In fact, these processes are going in laptops now, so this phone has 64 gigs of storage and 6 gigs of RAM, as you can see from the box right here, so it's going to be able to do everything you needed to do now.

There's lots of I've installed all myself to around here, but there's some blackberry software that's installed on here. There's BBM, which I have not used once, and I will probably not use what they say. There's those pop-ups that I'm talking about I will probably never use this for the time that I have it, because truthfully I, don't know anybody that that uses BBM and I'm, not gonna, have a chance that there's this new World Cup trivia thing that just popped up one day and fantastic I, don't know. There's the messaging hub, which I think is a lot more interesting and what's cool about this- is that it's combining my Facebook messages my SMS, my email, hangouts, anything that that gets messages shows up in that app. So what happens is if I, if I click on a notification, if I, if I click on Facebook here it launches Facebook and brings me to that uh to that post and if I click on a message from hangouts it opens hangouts and so on, and that's really cool.

If you ask me, I've always wanted that that's sort of a messaging hub, because I think we all kind of use those different messaging applications, one for SMS, one for Facebook, one for well I use, hangouts, I, know a lot of people, don't I know a lot of people use, WhatsApp, I, don't and Twitter, TMP's and really across the board, we're all using a bunch of apps for messaging and that there really should be that consolidated solution. Also, from blackberry. We have that uh, this security app retrieving security status. My security status is excellent. Right now, which is great and obviously BlackBerry, has a huge focus on security.

They do make android phones now, of course, but security is still a primary now. This is the first BlackBerry with a dual camera and that's about all there is to say about that. To be honest, but we could talk a little more. It has a portrait mode which honestly isn't very good. The front camera isn't very good.

We've uh, you could see some of my photos and a lot of these will show. This is the front camera and- and it's really just it's kind of overexposed- a little to my face- looks a little red and I don't love it. This is uh using the portrait mode, it doesn't see it didn't focus on the subject there, and it's something I mean it comes out: okay, sometimes, but it's not great and if you're getting if you're getting a phone for the camera which a lot of people do these days, I wouldn't recommend this phone really. What the value propositions to this phone is going to be is the physical keyboard. So we have various different things that we could do with the physical keyboard other than the fingerprint reader space bar.

So we have a swipe. We have a swipe gestures. These are off by default, but if I say hello, it's actually not very good, and it's supposed to learn from you. So let's try that again, hello yeah, so you can use it as a slight cure, because I found this very hard to use. Obviously we live in an age where touchscreens have one physical, keyboards aren't really a thing anymore: blackberries the only ones still pushing it, and they're catering to a fan base, and obviously this fan base loves this thing.

I I I found it very hard to get used to the swipe. Gestures are nice. One thing that I don't like at all is the placement. This is the shift key right here. This is the old key.

So if I want to tighten numbers, I have to hit alts too or if I hit it twice, it'll lock on and on every other keyboard in the world. The shift key is located where this old keys right here so I, I, often still even after using this for a while now or a week or so. I still find myself hitting that Alt key when I need to hit the shift key. So if I hit the obviously whoops now I'm still on all see, this is the kind of trouble that I run into, so I just turn off the alt there, and now we're on all caps, and this is the kind of trouble that I run into and I. Don't I, don't love it.

And another thing is when you look at the use case for a modern smartphone. We have things like obviously taking notes like I'm doing right now, sending messages, checking social networks, checking email, but also most of us play some kind of games on our phone and if you don't play any games, that's fine, but I think most people do to some degree and an issue with that it is actually really a pain, because you put this thing in landscape mode. Suddenly, you're reaching over here I end up accidentally hitting the navigation buttons, and it's not it's not great for playing really any mobile games. That I could find what I did enjoy was watching movies on this. I can tell you that, because most new phones have really narrow bezels on the side, and they have that 18 by 9 display, and so you end up kind of covering a little of it when you're, when you're holding it to watch a movie.

It's not an issue here because you can hold it right here. On top of the keyboard, the screen is a little smaller, it's a three by two aspects: ratio 1080p by 16, 20, and so, obviously, it's a little small for that. But it's cool that you can hold it I like that. They didn't go that route of decreasing the bezels so low to where it's an issue. We also have lots of shortcut option, so keyboard shortcuts and what we can do right.

We see we long press short press and that's what that's what these buttons over here for are for. So, if I hit this, that I can assign a shortcut to that, and you could have it open an app. You could do all kinds of stuff send a message. So that's pretty cool, there's also what they're calling a convenience key! That's this key right over here, and you could add shortcuts to this as well, so this key I mean I'm I would have it launch the camera, but there's another shortcut where I can just double press the power button and that launches the camera. I love phones with the digital, with a physical camera button- and you know I wish I could have it actually take the picture, but that's alright I do you know maybe that's in settings somewhere.

Obviously this is not a full review, so if you're waiting for a full review, you're going to want to check back for that in a few weeks and then there's this productivity screen over here, and you just swipe in from the right to get that you can see that little tab is always sitting there. This is your calendar here. You can add some lips. No there it goes. You can add events to it, which I don't do I, don't really use this to be anonymous.

Messaging, no messages apparently, and I have not found this thing to be useful at all tests to do, contacts and widgets that you can add to the tab and I mean I feel like this stuff is not necessary, but hey if you like if it's there, and you could probably turn it off if you particularly want to get rid of this tab that just kind of sits on the right side here other than that other than all that stuff. It's pretty much a stock experience- and you know blackberry- is- was promising that kind of stock experience on top of their BlackBerry apps. That are there with the messaging hub, which the messaging at the messaging hub is pretty cool. At the end, it works a lot better than I expected for something that's really just collecting notifications and it's an app launcher for you, because anything you click on there. It's going to launch the native app I was curious about how well it was gonna work, because I know that a lot of companies have kind of closed down their ecosystem to stuff like this.

Obviously, Facebook wants you to use the Facebook app you used to be able to post a Facebook from various third-party clients, and companies tried to include it in the operating system. You know Microsoft to do with Windows, Phone and Facebook started shutting that stuff down. So really it is just an app launcher, and it works pretty well I. Do wonder why they didn't go for more productivity route here considering the keyboard, they want to be a productive phone, obviously, and they brag about that. It's got a USB type-c port on the bottom.

I wonder why they didn't go for a desktop experience that other companies are doing Microsoft. Did it with continuum first and then Samsung did it with DEX, and why was doing it now, where you could just plug in the USB, see cable plug it into a dock, and you could plug in a keyboard and mouse and just use it like it's a desktop PC, but you already have the physical keyboard here, so you would think they would be pushing that. Maybe a partnership with Microsoft the know boost office productivity. So that's really about it. For the key to other things that came in the box is a USB type, a charger and the obvious type ADA type-c cable, and then there are blackberry headphones.

That came in here too, which I haven't used night, probably won't use I mean they're, just headphones, that come in the box, but yeah. This is those are our paperwork. Sim PIN and these are our blackberry headphones, and it does have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, which is not a given these days. Obviously, but yeah I mean so far, I like it for what it is I'm when I'm done reviewing this I'm going to go back to a phone with the touch screen and a touch screen keyboard, but it is what it is. It's got lots of, storage, lots of RAM, 64, gigs of storage, 6 gigs of ram.

It's got a good processor, good chipset, the snapdragon 616, and that allows it to come in at that price point of 649 because remember most of all, they use the snapdragon 800 series. These days are costing closer to $1,000, so this at least puts it in both that's how much flagship used to costs just a few years ago, but they've gotten a lot more expensive. So it keeps it in that and that reason will say reasonable price range. So that's about it. The dual cameras are 12 megapixels, each and the front.

Camera is 8 megapixels of the fixed focus and yeah. That's about it. It's mainly the keyboard. What I think that, when I review this phone next week, I, should it's going to be for people that want that physical keyboard, because it's not particularly greater than anything else? The cameras, not wonderful, I mean it's. It's.

Okay, it's a standard camera like any modern high-end phone. The display is nice, but it's not great for playing games. It's not great for anything. You know. I love that messaging hub I would love to get that messaging hub on.

You know a phone, that's that doesn't have a physical keyboard, but really this is for people that want the physical keyboard and I. Don't think that that anybody is going to be won over with this I. Don't think anybody's going to say, hey touch screen is not really working out for me. I can't wait to get a phone with a physical keyboard again, so this for people that that kind of know what they want here, hey guys, that's it all of a review. Next week, I'm Richard Neal Wynn have a great night.

Source : Neowin