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BLACKBERRY KEYONE REVIEW: PART PRODUCTIVITY, PART NOSTALGIA



BlackBerry’s latest phone has a particular set of skills acquired over a very long career



it was in about the third hour of using the new BlackBerry KeyOne, available this month for $549 unlocked, that I started to question my longtime preference for touchscreen keyboards. Because as I was pushing on the KeyOne’s tiny little buttons with the tips of my thumbs, I remembered why some people still have such an affinity for these things.
It wasn’t that I was able to type faster with the BlackBerry’s keyboard (I wasn’t), or that I was more accurate with it (I still used autocorrect). It was that I felt like I was more productive when using it. I wasn’t wasting time tweeting nonsense or sending emoji in ephemeral messages. I was sending important emails, working with my colleagues in Slack, creating and completing to-do lists, and adding appointments to my calendar. I was Getting Shit Done.

BLACKBERRY KEYONE SPECS

  • 4.5-inch, 1620 x 1080, 3:2 LCD display
  • 35-key physical keyboard with capacitive touch support
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor
  • 3GB RAM, 32GB storage with microSD card support
  • 3,505mAh battery with Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0
  • 12-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 lens
  • 8-megapixel front camera
  • Android 7.1 Nougat
  • BlackBerry Hub software
  • GSM and CDMA support
  • $549, unlocked

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