A Quick Look at Blackberry KEYone: Features & Specifications

HMD Global (Nokia’s partner) isn’t the only one trying to raise the dead at MWC this year by bringing nostalgic devices to the show, TCL (Blackberry’s partner) did the same thing last week with the release of Blackberry KEYone. This new device from TCL is reminiscent of the the glory days of Blackberry when physical QWERTY keyboard was the real deal.

Blackberry KEYone features Blackberry’s traditional physical keyboard below the screen and runs Android OS, not Blackberry’s dead and forgotten software. The device is powered by a Snapdragon 625 chipset, a 2.0GHz octa-core processor with Adreno 506 GPU.

The 4.5-inch screen has a resolution of 1080 x  1620px, and it’s covered with Gorilla Glass 4. There’s a 3GB RAM and the device has an internal storage of 32GB. As for the battery, it has a capacity of 3505mAh. On the connectivity side, the device is 4G-enabled as expected (with Cat 7 LTE, up to 300 Mbit/s downlink and up to 150 Mb/s uplink)
The keyboard isn’t just for typing, it has some cool tricks up its sleeves. According to TCL, the keyboard can be used as an extension for the display. Programmable shortcuts can be implemented, making them particularly useful for photo editing, scrolling and other custom gestures.

Pricing and availability

The device will be available in April in several countries. The price has been announced already to be $549/€599/£499. This is about ₦172,000 using direct currency conversion.

Blackberry KEYone full specifications

	BlackBerry KEYone Specifications
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 (MSM8953) 8x ARM Cortex-A53 @ 2.0 GHz Adreno 506
RAM	3 GB LPDDR3
Storage	32 GB (eMMC)
Display	4.5-inch 1620×1080 (434 ppi) with Gorilla Glass 4
Network	3G: WCDMA (DB-DCHSDPA, DC-HSUPA), TD-SCDMA, EV-DO, CDMA1x 2G: GSM/EDGE 4G: depends on the versionCanada, LATAM, APAC, US V1: LTE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 28, 29, 30 TDD LTE: 38, 39, 40, 41EMEA: LTE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 17, 20, 28 TDD LTE: 38, 40US V2: LTE: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30 TDD LTE: 41 CDMA: BC 0, 1, 10
LTE	Down: 300 Mb/s Up: 150 Mb/s
Audio	Stereo speakers 3.5-mm TRRS audio jack
Dimensions	see pictures
Rear Camera	12 MP with f/2.0 aperture and dual LED flash
Front Camera	8 MP
Battery	3505 mAh with Qualcomm’s FastCharging 3.0
OS	Android 7.1
Connectivity	802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, USB-C
Sensors	Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, proximity, ambient light
Navigation	GPS, GLONASS (?)
SIM Size	NanoSIM
Colors	Black/Metallic
Launch Country	NA, EMEA (parts), APAC(?)