BlackBerry KEYone smartphone is expected to hit the market from May 31
Blackberry KEYone which was the first handsets showcased in 2017 Mobile World Congress, the company has to release its launch date for US and Canada markets. Unlike 2015's keyboard-equipped Blackberry Priv, the KeyOne isn't a slide and its keyboard is always exposed, as a result, it has a shorter and more squarish display than most modern smartphones. Like the Priv, though the KeyOne runs a lightly customized version of Android (version 7.1.1) with some of BlackBerry's apps and services preinstalled.
The US version will available for the unlocked price of $549 at first, but the Canadian version will be available for $199 with a two-year contract from Bell, Bell MTS, SaskTel, and Telus Business. Finally, the UK version is also available now from Selfridges for £499 with a Carphone Warehouse launch on May 5.
TCL communications, the Chinese company that acquired rights to produce BalckBerry-brand handsets, Actually the phone would go on sale in April, so the delay may disappoint potential users.
Alex Thurber, Sr. Vice President and General Manager of the Mobility Solutions at BlackBerry said that "BlackBerry fans in Canada will be extremely excited to have the BlackBerry KEYone available in their market".
BlackBerry KEYone will come with the signature QWERTY keypad below the device, which also has a fingerprint sensor. The device will be coming on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core SoC clocked up to @2.0GHz coupled with an Adreno 506 GPU chip.
This handset features 3 GB of RAM with 32 GB of internal storage which is expandable via microSD card (up to 2 TB). The KEYone will sport a 4.5-inch full-HD (1620 x1080) IPS panel display clad under Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4 for protection against scratches. For the camera specification, the smartphone sports a 12-megapixel SONY IMX378 sensor at the back with PDAF support a f/2.0 aperture and dual-LED flash. Up-front an 8-megapixel sensor is present with a f/2.2 aperture and LED flash for video chatting and selfie handset. It comes with 3305mAh battery with Qualcomm’s Quick charge 3.0 standard over the USB Type-C v.1.0 connector.
Connectivity feature includes 4G LTE bands, WiFi 802.11 up to ac standard (dual-band 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz), Bluetooth v.4.2, GPS, NFC, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
The new smartphone will be available for pre-order in Canada on May 18 and released for Canada and U.S users from May 31.