BlackBerry KeyONE: Keyboard-Clad Smartphone Arrives Next Month
The much awaited keyboard-clad smartphone from BlackBerry called KEYone will be released in North America next month.
Release in U.S. and Canada
As of now, CNET only mentioned Sprint as the U.S. carrier to bring the BlackBerry KEYone to the country with the promise of opening the pre-order sales "in late summer." However, The Verge reported that unlocked units of KEYone — which will support both GSM and CDMA networks — will go on sale in the U.S. on Wednesday, May 31 for $549.
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Meanwhile, carriers in Canada are reportedly going to accept pre-orders for the said device starting on May 18. According to Huffington Post, Canadian carriers such as Bell, Bell MTS, Rogers, SaskTel and Telus Business will offer a $199-worth of two-year contract.
BlackBerry KEYone was announced in time for the Mobile World Congress event last February, and the upcoming smartphone is the fulfillment of BlackBerry's promise that it made as early as November last year that the Canada-based electronics firm will release its last in-house device. BlackBerry CEO John Chen told Bloomberg at the time: "We have one keyboard phone I promised people. It's coming."
KEYone Specifications
Blackberry KEYone will sport a fully touchscreen, "scratch-resistant" display that measures 4.5 inches with the physical QWERTY keyboard located below it. The in-plane switching LCD panel promises to deliver up to 1,620 x 1,080 resolution. Apart from the physical keyboard, the BlackBerry KEYone is also designed with the familiar on-screen keys on Android devices.
The device is packed with a 12-megapixel rear camera that can deliver 4K video recording at a framerate of 30 frames per second. Meanwhile, in the front, the BlackBerry KEYone has an 8 MP camera programmed with the "selfie panorama" mode.
BlackBerry has also upped its game with the KEYone as the device is pre-installed with 3 GB random access memory paired with a 32 GB read-only memory. Its future owners can also opt to expand the storage space through a dedicated microSD slot that can support up to 2 TB. The device runs with the octa-core 2-gigahertz chip Qualcomm Snapdragon 625.
While BlackBerry pitched in a lot with the programming and design of KEYone, the device was mainly manufactured by TCL -- the company who acquired the rights to produce device under the BlackBerry brand.
