BlackBerry just announced its latest smartphone that was codenamed ‘Mercury’ as KEYone at its MWC 2017 event in Barcelona, as it had promised. It is the last phone that is designed by BlackBerry and is made by TCL Communication Technology (TCT). It has a 4.5-inch (1620 x 1080 pixels) display with 3:2 aspect ratio and has a 4-row QWERTY physical backlit keyboard with keys that respond to touch gestures, support for flick typing, up to 52 customizable shortcuts and the fingerprint sensor is built into the spacebar.
It runs on Android 7.1 (Nougat) with security and productivity suite from BlackBerry. It has an anodized aluminum frame and a soft touch textured back. It is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 SoC, packs 3GB of RAM and a 3505mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 that charge up to 50% in just 36 minutes.
BlackBerry KEYone specifications
- 4.5-inch (1620 x 1080 pixels) 3:2 display with 433 PPI, scratch-resistant glass protection
- 2GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 14nm processor with 650MHz Adreno 506 GPU
- 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, expandable memory up to 2TB with microSD
- 4-row Physical QWERTY backlit keyboard with capacitive touch
- Android 7.1 (Nougat)
- 12MP rear camera with dual-tone LED Flash, Sony IMX378 sensor, 1.55μm pixel size, 1/2.3″ sensor size, f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, 4K video recording
- 8MP front-facing camera with 1.12µm pixel size, f/2.2 aperture
- Fingerprint sensor
- 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
- Dimensions: 149.3 x 72.5 x 9.4mm; Weight: 180g
- 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4 & 5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.2, GPS / GLONASS, NFC, USB 3.1 Type-C
- 3505mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0
The BlackBerry KEYone comes in Black color and is priced at US$ 549 (Rs. 36,590 approx.) / 599 Euros / 499 GBP depending on the market. It will be available globally starting from April.