BlackBerry KEYone Review By PhoneArena

This is the BlackBerry key one, the latest in the new wave of Android powered BlackBerry's, brought to us by TCL the company behind Alcatel phones, but well, last year's TCL blackberries are based on existing Android models. The key one is a phone at the blackberry from the ground up. Is there still a place for opponents to unabashedly embraces its hardware keyboard today's big screen bezel this world or is the key one, an anachronistic throwback, it's little more than a last-ditch effort from a once great, but now fading brand I'm, Steven shank, with Phil arena and after spending the last week with the blackberry, key1 I'm, ready to start answering those questions for an industry. That's so built on the idea of being the next big thing. Part of the cutting edge in terms of everything from design to performance to feature sets a phone with a small screen and a big old hardware. Qwerty keyboard you've just seen 19 types of backwards, but while the BlackBerry phones of old may be but a distant memory at this point, the company's evolution into the world of modern handsets has brought with it more than a few holdovers from those days of yore and when the Android powered PRI debuted back in 2015, it arrived armed with a hardware keyboard with the print of blackberry was still feeling things out, and it wasn't quite ready to go all in a phone with a really conspicuous physical keyboard.

The slider construction kept that keyboard incognito only popping out when needed and still putting out the appearance of a modern full touch phone now in 2017, the keyboards making a return and in a way, that's impossible to ignore the BlackBerry key one, far more than the print like a modern reincarnation of a classic blackberry design. The phone solidly crafted of sturdy aluminum and, as a result, feels are really substantial. Even the fake leather texture covering the key ones back is nicely executed. It seems much more resistant to damage than a glass back or even a cheeks plastic panel. Moving around the handset.

We find the phone's power key moving by itself from the left edge, an analogue headphone jack up top USB type-c port and the key one speaker on the bottom and both the volume rocker and a software configurable convenience key you which we'll talk more about in just a minute on the right. But this phone is one really defined. By what's going on around front, we've got a 4.5 inch display perched on top of a next-gen BlackBerry keyboard. It looks a little more like what we'd see on an old BlackBerry 10 device than the prime with those iconic silver stripes between each row of keys. The keys may be tiny sure, but subtly raised key caps and satisfying and click haptic feedback help make them feel pretty nice to use while typing.

If you haven't, used a phone like this in a while. If ever there's going to be an understandable period of adjustment, but even after just a few days, we're feeling much more comfortable with a hardware keyboard and our inputs getting faster and more accurate. All the time like the prigs keyboard, this one is loaded with capacitive sensors and let the surface double as a trackpad. We have to use something similar on a recent phone that allows gesture control through their fingerprint scanners, but the key ones level of interaction far out does even those you can browse through a lengthy webpage, scrolling up down, left and right all without ever actually touching your phone stream. It's an unusual way to interact with a smartphone to be sure, but what was some real benefits, including minimizing smudges, on the displays glass? Unlike the Prince, the highway crams a whole new feature into its keyboard, hiding the phone's fingerprint scanner right within the space bar.

The implementation is subtly graceful like how the space Keys vac, like gently pulses on the phone's, lock screen to help draw your attention to it as a scanner. It works reasonably well, we'd love it if it works just a bit faster above the keyboard of the phone screen, a 4.5 inch panel and the unusual for phones, 3 by 2 aspect, ratio, keyboard equipped, blackberries of the past favored perfectly square screens in this feel that could compromise between bat and a full-blown widescreen display, which there very much is in room for the size and shape end up working well for the key one, and while the screens not exactly optimized for media consumption, it is great for accessing the web or working with documents. We also appreciate how the screen is quite bright, though its brightest output is reserved for automatic brightness control. The maximum under manual operation is considerably dimmer TCL's, given the key one. Some hardware specs that on paper, feel very much like a mid-range phone rather than a top-shelf flagship.

Those include a Snapdragon 625 processor, 3, gigs of ram and 32 gigs of storage. Now that storage level is fine if nothing to write home about and the presence of micros expansion gives you room to grow. As for the RAM that memory capacity isn't great, and we'd really prefer to see 4 gigabytes here, far more often than we'd like we'd, see apps reloading themselves into memory during multitasking. The Snapdragon 625 is a middle-of-the-road chip when it comes to processing power and an aging one at that. This was very much the chip we looked to last summer for a decent, mid-range ER with great battery life.

Our benchmark tests further confirmed that the key one performs in the same level. It sounds like the Motor Z play or, more recently, the Moto G 5 plus that's frustrating, because the g5 plus, for example, sells for $300 or less while the key one is north of 500. Are you getting ripped off? Well, the value of phone is more than just the sum of its components, and we've got a look at how that chip makes the key one. The handset it is honestly performance on the phone is just fine, especially for the use cases. The manufacturer clearly had in mind basically productivity stuff rather than gaming.

More importantly, though, it will make the key one really special is the effect that decision has on battery life. The Snapdragon 625 tends to always result in very power, efficient phones and here TCL pairs it with a huge 30 505 million power battery, combines that, with the Meeker power demands of that small 4.5-inch screen, and we've got a phone that can easily last for over 12 hours with the screen on the entire time. With lighter usage, you can get days upon days of operation out of the phone without meeting the recharge, so yeah, maybe a higher end processor would make those benchmarks look even better, but we're not about to trade. This kind of utterly insane battery life for slightly smoother frame rates. Another area where the BlackBerry highway delivers pleasant surprises is, with its cameras, we've got a 12 megapixel main camera paired with an 8 megapixel front facing there aren't a lot of bells and whistles here, no laser autofocus or the like.

Honestly. We doubt many shoppers are expecting a best-in-class camera from a blackberry handset, but as it turns out- and we just take in what the key one look, pretty darn good exposures tend to be right. On point focus looks sharp, and it's all in all, just a really capable, generally reliable camera. Sometimes HDR picks took a little while to put together in lower light environments, but the light performance overall is really solid and, of course, with all the hardware buttons offered by the phone's keyboard. The camera is happy to use a space bar as a shutter button.

Video recording similarly works pretty. Well, though, the footage in a hole tended towards the darker side. We really like how the phone delivers lots of recording options, including multiple frame rates, even when filming in 4k, but if you're taking an advantage of the key ones. Electronic stabilization you'll have to keep things at 1080p at 30 frames per second or lower. Refocusing, while filming was nice and Swift helping the camera to keep up with the action, sound outputs, a little on the quieter side from the phone's internal speaker, but there's always a headphone jack.

For private listening, TCL even throws in a pair of nice-looking blackberries, branded earbuds and with a number of alternate tip sizes at that sound quality from This is good, not spectacular, but it's still a gesture. We appreciate blackberry software includes expected things like BBM and the D Tech security app, as well as a Samsung edge style productivity tab, but maybe the coolest features are those that tap into the key ones. Hardware. For instance, you can configure the launcher to accept any letter on the keyboard as an app shortcut and even launch different apps, depending on long or short presses. If you don't need nearly so many options, there's also that side-mounted convenience key we mentioned earlier.

You can set this up as a shortcut to phone features or to quick launch the app of your choice and for a phone that may have some stodgy businessman roots. It's a lot of fun to configure a dedicated Snapchat button, the BlackBerry key one definitely isn't a smartphone for everyone, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice to dismiss it outright. Now all you care about is the fastest performance, slickest, design and biggest screen. Then ok go right on looking, but if you're curious, what a really well-executed hardware keyboard could do to enhance your productivity or what insane power efficiency could mean for curing your urge to carry a charger around everywhere. Key one has a lot to offer.

If all you're looking at are raw specs, then yes, a $550 price tag is admittedly steep, but the key one offers so much more than similarly equipped mid-range her and this combination of hardware and software delivers real value at $450. The key one will be a no-brainer, but even at this launch price, this unusual Android could still very much be worth your time. I'm Steven shank the phone arena thanks for watching and be sure to subscribe. So you don't miss any upcoming reviews.

Source : PhoneArena