It’s been a while since we saw people in Singapore with Blackberry in their hands. Maybe that will change with the new Blackberry KEYone, a phone that promises the latest tech while keeping what people loved about the Blackberry phones.
Keyboard Still There, But Better
For me, someone who owned a Blackberry about ten years back, the best thing is the awesome keyboard. I’ve never been able to master the finesse required to type on a touchscreen and sometimes still miss the tactile typing of my old Blackberry.
The Blackberry KEYone sports a reimagined keyboard that has up to 52 customizable shortcuts for quick access to your favorite apps and important contacts. Touch navigation is mainly there to quickly scroll through webpages or emails. This is an amazing upgrade, as one of my biggest problems with the old Blackberry phones was the tiny touchpad that was a hassle to navigate with. Blackberry has managed to integrate modern features while keeping what was so good about their phones in the first place.
Keeping Up With the Times
Of course, having a nice keyboard with touchscreen navigation doesn’t make a good phone. What about it’s processing power? Turns out Blackberry is upping their game with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 mobile platform and te Qualcomm Adreno 506 GPU. Technical jargon aside, this basically means you’ll have faster processing, optimized battery efficiency, and fast LTE speeds.
Finally, Blackberry also needs to compete on its camera, one of the most used features in smartphones. The BlackBerry KEYone includes a 12MP rear camera with a wide aperture lens dual-tone flash. This is pretty much industry-standard (and very good), so you won’t need to worry about your Blackberry having an inferior camera with the KEYone.
The BlackBerry KEYone Black Edition is available with a suggested retail price of S$858 from Starhub and M1.