The BlackBerry KeyOne Review
BlackBerry lays a Golden Egg

A little history before the review
Since Apple came into the smartphone market with the iPhone and Google later brought Android to the world, life hasn’t been easy for BlackBerry. They were the king of mobile communications in the early 2000s. Now it’s fighting to remain relevant. A few failed attempts at introducing a new operating system and major flops of hardware including the Z10 and it’s BB10 OS siblings.
Later on, BlackBerry realized that their QNX based OS wasn’t making any inroads and with their market share hitting 0% they needed to make a drastic decision and they BlackBerry PRIV was born. An interesting blend of a slider smartphone with a full screen Android experience as well as a slide out physical keyboard. It represented both BlackBerry’s new found hope, the Android OS, and also the last phone made by BlackBerry itself.
BlackBerry then struck a deal with TCL, a Chinese manufacturer famously known for being the brains behind the Alcatel brand of mobile phones. BlackBerry pushed out some phones with designs based off the Alcatel Idol 4 series of smartphones. These were the DTEK series of smartphones. They were received well but didn’t create ripples in the industry. Then came the KeyOne.
Now we’re in the review

The BlackBerry KeyOne is the culmination of years of searching for the right path to take for the company that was surpassed by the ever changing world of mobile tech. And I’m glad to report that the BlackBerry line of smartphones is back on the right track. The KeyOne’s key feature is its full sized physical keyboard which is reminiscent of the Bold series of phones that the company are famous for. It’s built like a tank and designed from the ground up for productivity rather than good looks.
They keyboard is tactile and responsive pretty much a breeze to work with. It’s capacitive so you can swipe on the keypad to navigate the Android UI and you can also swipe up on the words suggested on the screen with a swipe up. Aside from that one of the biggest things with this keyboard is the productivity it brings. This keyboard makes you want to type out emails, punch out some long social media and Medium posts. In fact, the whole video script for the KeyOne was done on the the phone itself and it was amazing.

I would go as far as to say, if you’re a basic computer user. Using the Office Suite mostly, the KeyOne could easily replace your desktop. You got the keyboard. You got the screen. Type away.
The screen is a 1620 by 1080 display which is good. It’s LCD tech so don’t expect pitch blacks but you can expect a serious amount of contrast and sunlight legibility. The display also tappers at the sides so you’ll be enjoying pulling out those side menus on Android apps. It’s also not the best for content consumption, YouTube, Netflix, Showmax and the likes. The 3:2 aspect ratio isn’t the best for multimedia but it’ll still do the job if that’s what you want. It’s still an Android.
If you’re keen on apps and multimedia then you’ll need storage. Storage comes in at 32GB on the standard model of the KeyOne expandable via MicroSD. Also adding on to what Android introduced in Marshmallow, you can format your SD card (if it’s fast enough) as part of the internal storage. This can easily take your storage north of 100GB.
The performance side of things is okay. The KeyOne is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 which has 8 cores running up to 2.0GHz. This means the KeyOne is a solid device in terms of getting basic tasks done and some more advanced ones too. It handled some image editing and some heavy multitasking. Games. I didn’t play games on KeyOne to be honest. I was never inclined to. Most of the time I’m typing out stuff on texts and social media or a script or this review itself. Started on the KeyOne and finished it on the OnePlus 5. What you should know is this phone will get things done. RAM is a good 3GB so you know you won’t be bottlenecked.
One thing though, I noticed that the KeyOne could hold about 6 apps in memory at a time depending on how heavy they are. With that, it’ll kind of piss you off a little. But just a little. I’m nitpicking here.
Software on the KeyOne is handled by a secure version of Android that’s guranteed to be full proof by Blackberry’s own DTEK security system. The Android version is 7.1.1 which is pretty much the latest release of Android. During my time with the phone I received an update that got the phone to the latest August security update which is nice to see. BlackBerry have basically a stock implementation of Android only changing the recent apps screen which is useful for the form factor. A couple of additions like the Blackberry Hub and the suite of apps make sure you’re getting the full Blackberry experience.
If you have ever wondered why there are no phones that last the whole day, well it seems you haven’t met the KeyOne. It’s 3505mAh battery and super efficient processor ensure that it lasts you more than a day. It keeps going and going….. it’s really good. If you need a phone that lasts the KeyOne should be on your shortlist.

Finally, the camera, this is where BlackBerry won me over. The cameras are a 12MP sensor for the back and a 8MP sensor handling the selfie department. To be honest, this camera is legit. It will win you over. The colors are punchy, the detail is superb and the dynamic range is top notch. Its not a Galaxy S8 but once you have it, you won’t bother to think it would be better. The selfie shooter does a decent job in good lighting but can be a little washed out in the darker environments. The 12MP back shooter has the same sensor as the Google Pixel which is a big up for Blackberry as the photo quality holds it’s own.
Other things like the fingerprint scanner added to the space bar are a nice touch. The soft touch material on the back is nice. Deceptively grippy but will still need a case.
The verdit
If you have been thinking all this while. This sounds like a Blackberry from your dreams it probably is. If you have some cash and you’re looking for a productivity beast, you’ve found it with the KeyOne. It retails on the Blackberry online store at Ksh 54k or there about so give Ksh 5000 for good measure and you’ll have one of the best devices of the year in my opinion. Unique and offering true value.
