Today’s cherished technology is tomorrow’s useless artifact. Believe me, I know. I have drawers full of aging and defunct gadgets, some of which I once used every single day.

Now they sit, moldering in a plastic drawer, a Creative Labs pocket video camera next to an iPhone 3GS, a first-generation iPad under an old iPod nano.

Sometimes, I slip out a drawer and go back through once-useful technology and marvel at how far we’ve come – even just myself.

I started using Apple’s iPhone in 2011 with the iPhone 4 on Verizon (the first outside the AT&T network). What I left behind was my BlackBerry Torch. It was not my first BlackBerry. I’d been using a BlackBerry Bold 9000 for years and switched up to the slide-away keyboard, touch-screen Torch in 2010. As I was initially testing the iPhone 4, I recall using both devices at the same time.

Eventually, though, I gave up the Torch, consigning it to my own little technology graveyard.

When I pulled the BlackBerry Torch out of a drawer last week, I marveled at its near-perfect condition and, for kicks, decided to charge it up – but first I had to find a micro-USB charger. Thankfully, I keep a drawer of old chargers, as well.

Like a slumberer splashed with ice-cold water, the phone launched quickly and with surprising brightness. It didn’t seem stunned, though, more like frozen in time. There before me on the tiny 3.2-inch 360x480 display was the iconic BlackBerry interface – yes, this was still Blackberry OS (6 or 7).

The touch-screen interface was filled with cryogenically stored icons for Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. By this phone’s count, I still had 37 unread tweets to peruse. To my surprise, the old Twitter app still opened to my feed from July 2012. Broken “Twitpic” links went nowhere, though. Even after I put the phone on my Wi-Fi and composed a new tweet, it went nowhere. This version of Twitter has long been abandoned by the world.

I slid up the screen to examine the classic, physical BlackBerry Keyboard. How did I ever thumb-type on something so small?

The rear, 5 MP camera still worked, prompting me to grab a selfie. It looked decent on the screen, and I thought it might be fun to share it. That’s when I noticed there were dozens of decade-old images trapped in my BlackBerry Torch.

Project Photo Reclamation

Since I had the BlackBerry Torch on my Wi-Fi network, I stupidly assumed it would be easy to get my photos off the phone and onto another device like my laptop.

“I’ll mail it to myself!”

There was still a semi-functioning web browser on the phone, and I used it to try logging into one of my various online email accounts. Web browser technology has made tremendous progress since 2012, including implementing some serious security measures like Secure Socket Layer (SSL or the “https” you see on every URL). However, a mobile browser from 2012 doesn’t know anything about that protocol (Google didn’t start preferring HTTPS sites over standard ones until 2014) and now it couldn’t load a single secure site because of it, including Gmail and Yahoo mail.

Next, I tried connecting the phone via Bluetooth to my Windows 11 PC. I even installed some old BlackBerry desktop software to try and help the process along. The two systems sort of saw each other but couldn’t complete the handshake to connect.

I started to wonder if the only way I’d be able to save these images for perpetuity would be by taking pictures of the BlackBerry screen. I know, a terrible idea.

A Better Way

The thing is, I knew this phone. In fact, I was a bit of a BlackBerry nerd back in the day and I understood this device better than most. That’s when I remembered something else: It supported removable storage.

I opened the back of the phone, which revealed a large battery and a slim slot that still held the old AT&T World Data sim card. Just above it, like the top berth in a bunk bed, was an open slot for a microSD card.

Shuffling through my collection of mostly full cards, I found a 32GB one (the largest capacity the Blackberry Torch could support) and slipped it into the slot. The phone immediately recognized it but requested that it reformat it. I hesitated for a moment (what was on that card?) but realized that it was nothing important.

What I had, though, was half a solution. The photos were all stored on internal phone memory, I could choose to store newly captured photos on the card, but I couldn't recall a way of asking the phone to move all the photos from one storage media to another – or was there?

A quick Google search reminded me that BlackBerry had a copy and paste function. It worked great for text, but could I use it for files like photos?

Short answer: yes.

Step-by-step

I opened the Picture Gallery (under “Media”), then the folder full of 245 photos. Back when I was a BlackBerry master, I knew that the BlackBerry key, that little BlackBerry symbol icon between the phone and tiny trackpad, was like a treasure chest of functionality. Initially, I hadn’t even considered using it but now I realized that it held every tool I need to make this transfer work.

I pressed the button and found the “Select” option. Next, I taped on a dozen photos. Then I carefully went back to the BlackBerry Button and selected copy. I then backed out and navigated to the SD card, which showed up as one of my image locations, and pasted the copied images into the card’s storage.

I found that I could also select to move the images from the phone storage to the SD card.

Since there were so many images, I did them in batches until I’d gotten through all 175. There were supposed to be more, but I could not account for the BlackBerry miscount.

Once I made it through all the images, I removed the microSD card, put it in a USB card reader, and plugged it into my computer. All my photos were there.

Are all these images gold? No, though the one of Sascha Baron Cohen shooting The Great Dictator near my old office might be considered priceless.

In a way, I enjoyed the journey even more than all these old photos (except for the ones of my still-young children – those I cherish). It’s just a reminder that what was lost can be found again if you stick to it.

As for the BlackBerry Torch? It’s back in the drawer, jockeying for space with an old Audiovox feature phone.

The rumors were true. OnwardMobility's silence was a sign of much deeper problems and now the company that revived the BlackBerry hardware name has shut its doors and ended its plans for delivering a 5G BlackBerry device.

The company announced the news on its website  on Tuesday:

"...it is with great sadness that we announce that OnwardMobility will be shutting down, and we will no longer be proceeding with the development of an ultra-secure smartphone with a physical keyboard."

The OnwardMobility team adds that "this wasn't the outcome we worked and hoped for."

Analysis: OnwardMobility's BlackBerry plans died on the vine

The disappointing BlackBerry news comes almost two years after the Texas-based company purchased the BlackBerry brand name and announced plans to build a secure, 5G BlackBerry device. More importantly, they promised to include a signature physical keyboard. There are, in our estimation, essentially zero 5G phones with physical QWERTY keyboards.

OnwardMobility's demise may mark the true end of the BlackBerry brand across phones and services. Earlier this year, BlackBerry (the Canadian company), sold off most of its key patents. After that, they shut down the BlackBerry OS service that supported original BlackBerry phones (before the Android versions, which were built by yet a different partner).

It's a sad end to a storied history as one of the most useful and forward-leaning mobile brands in history. Sure, Blackberry was caught flat-footed when the original iPhone came along in 2007. However, up until that moment, BlackBerry phones were the most important mobile brand in business and for consumers. Hard to believe that owning BlackBerry phone in 2005 was a considered status symbol.

By the time BlackBerry arrived on Android in 2015, it and the physical keyboard that still adorned some devices was seen as something of a curiosity.

Now, the brand name will fade into our collective memory of a time when we were so addicted to our BlackBerry phones that we called them "CrackBerries".

• 5 things BlackBerry phones got right (and 5 things they didn’t)

There was a brief moment in time when it really sounded like a Blackberry 5G was coming, thanks to the efforts of Texan company OnwardMobility, which announced it was reviving the name. However, a new report is telling us what months and months of radio silence suggested: the phone might not be coming anymore.

This comes from Crackberry, based on sources the site has at OnwardMobility. Apparently "OnwardMobility and their BlackBerry 5G keyboard phone dream are dead,", and while it's not clear what caused this 'death', the brand speculates that the CEO of Blackberry is trying to distance itself from mobile phones.

A curious tidbit from Crackberry is that OnwardMobility offered to share details of the phone with the website, as long as it signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).

This is common practice in the consumer tech world, usually for products that are set to launch imminently, and this detail seems to contradict claims that there is no new Blackberry in the works.

AndroidPolice adds that ongoing component supply chain issues have also had a hand in ensuring OnwardMobility didn't end up producing a phone, but it's not clear where this information came from.

TechRadar has reached out to OnwardMobility for clarity and comment on the situation, and we'll update this article if or when we hear back.

Analysis: Blackberry continues

The Blackberry 5G has had a storied few years - so does the 'Blackberry' name itself, with various companies like TCL and ZTE having produced phones under the name, after original company Research In Motion switched focus to software instead of smartphones.

After a mid-2020 announcement that Texas-based company OnwardMobility would be picking up the defunct Blackberry name for a new 5G mobile, fans of the legacy mobile phones were understandably pumped. 

A year and a half on, with no solid news on the phone beyond the occasional vague blog post, it's not surprising - but still saddening - to hear that the mobile might never come out.

At the moment, on a scale from 'really excited' to 'heartbroken', we'd recommend hovering around 'skeptical but not hopeless' - while it's sounding unlikely that the Blackberry 5G will ever arrive, we'd wait for official comment on the matter first.

It's worth looking at alternatives though, and there are always a few interesting business mobiles on the market. The Astro Slide, for example, launched recently, with a physical keyboard and 5G connectivity, and that might be enough to fill that Blackberry-shaped hole in your heart.

• Waiting for the Blackberry 5G? The Astro Slide could be a good alternative

Finding an old phone in a drawer and turning it on to see if it still works is one of life’s great pleasures (we never said we’re exciting folk here at TechRadar).

But if said phone is a BlackBerry, save yourself the trouble - it stopped working as of January 4. BlackBerry hasn’t made a new non-Android phone since 2016. It hasn’t released an operating system in even longer. And now it’s turned the service off, meaning no phone calls, no emails, no messages... nada.

In fairness, the majority of BB owners have migrated to iOS or Android over the years - with the absence of Windows Phone as well, it’s a fairly binary choice these days. 

Even diehard BlackBerry fans who wanted mod cons had to migrate to Android: in latter years, a licensing deal with China’s TCL kept the brand name alive with Google’s OS powering the backend.

But now, the life support machine’s been switched off and legacy BlackBerry devices will “no longer function reliably,” says BlackBerry. So let’s be nostalgic for a minute and look at five things BlackBerry got fantastically right - and five things it got badly wrong.

5 things BlackBerry phones got right

1.  The ‘Look At Me’ light  

Sometimes, the smallest things have the biggest impact. This was never truer than the blinking notification light - something we hanker after even today. Android phones might serve up an always-on display, but nothing comes close in our retro rose-tinted eyes. 

Ignore it? Not a chance. You couldn’t unsee it. The itch that had to be scratched. Who wanted us? Was it important? Only one way to find out..

Flashing green meant ‘relax - you’re online’, blue for Bluetooth (obviously) or red to say “Oi!”. 

And you could customize it, too. In the days when anything beyond a polyphonic ringtone was a luxury, this was the gold standard in personalization.

2. The best keyboard 

“They all have these keyboards that are there whether you need them or not,” spouted Apple’s seer as he unveiled the iPhone, bashed competitors and pounded the first nail into BlackBerry’s metaphorical coffin. “How do you solve this?”

Key point: BlackBerry users didn’t want this solved.

The keys were tactile with a satisfactory click. Small, but not too small. We could use one hand or two and they always seemed to know what we wanted to say. Even in later years, after flirting and failing with touchscreens, the keyboard came back to BlackBerry because it was what the users wanted. Welcome back, old friend. 

Other devices tried - Motorola’s Q had a go, HTC’s ill-fated Facebook ChaCha phone and a few others too. But they were always poor imitations. Rumor had it that the keys resembled Blackberry seeds - hence the company’s name. And once some had a sweet taste of this fruit, they found it hard to give up. 

3. On message 

A proprietary message service to lock users in. Where’ve we heard that before? No Apple, you’re off the hook. Because RIM got here first.

For many of us, BBM was the reason to get a BlackBerry. A locked down ultra-secure messaging service that allowed users to DM friends or groups and send files securely. Business users loved it - teens and millennials, even more. Suddenly, ‘what’s your PIN’ was the teenage greeting of choice from people other than just muggers. 

And if you didn’t get a reply to your message instantly, you could PING (basically annoy the person who was ignoring you with the digital equivalent of continuously poking them in the face.)

But time waits for no man. BlackBerry’s refusal to open up to other platforms ultimately helped move it into irrelevance. With cross platform options like WhatsApp on the scene, by the time BBM had decided to make itself available elsewhere, it was too late. There’s a lesson there: Don’t hang about.

4. Case in point

These days, you’re lucky to get a charger in the box with your smartphone. For all of the company’s corporate faults, generosity wasn’t one. 

Unboxing gave us a treasure trove of goodies: from a classy leather holster engraved with the BlackBerry logo to a belt clip (because noughties) to some of the more mundane extras like a sync cable and CD Rom. 

Some markets really pushed the metaphorical boat out - including an official chrome RIM charging stand and a polishing cloth. 

BlackBerries were premium devices and they cost a pretty penny by the standards of the day. There wasn’t an expectation that customers should be nickel-and-dimed on top. 2022’s market could learn a thing or two.

5. Maximum exposure 

There are some things money just can’t buy: eternal life, true love, real class. And an endorsement from Oprah. One of the world’s richest stars, she doesn’t say she likes something unless she wants to. 

And she couldn’t shut up about her BlackBerry. 

In fact, Oprah included the BlackBerry 7105T as one of her 2005 ‘favorite things’ in the bag of goodies given to her audience as part of the annual Thanksgiving show. Some CEOs would sell a kidney for this exposure.

It was arguably the start of RIM (BlackBerry’s parent company) catapulting from corporate to consumer in a big way, with RIM devices appearing in the hands of everyone from Kim Kardashian to President Obama (who had to have a custom ultra-secure version designed.). Not to mention demand among Joe and Jane Public. 

This was before the days of the ‘gram, before influencing as we know it - and BlackBerry landed the biggest influencer of them all - on primetime US TV. 

5 things BlackBerry phones got wrong 

1. App-solutely woeful 

BlackBerry App World was the wettest and most feeble app store you could get on a phone. What a letdown.

Ironically, BlackBerries had always been open - allowing external apps to be installed with relative ease. But Apple and Android gave us curated, managed storefronts. RIM followed and failed, breaking our hearts in the process. 

Some apps - like Screen Muncher (a fun screenshot app and a particular favorite of ours) - gave the BlackBerry extra functionality. But it was like wading through the dregs of a dirty river to find a diamond - and not even coming across a bit of shiny plastic.

Even then, as we wrote, apps sell phones as much as phones do. You lose the developers, you lose the market. It wasn’t worth the devs’ time - and it wasn’t worth ours either.  

2. Touch traumas

It’s not the winning, it’s the taking part that counts, right? Wrong. If you don’t have a good idea - stay away. But hindsight’s a wonderful thing.

With mounting pressure from the sales of the iPhone hitting the powerful carriers in the US (these were the days when the iPhone was exclusive to Cingular, now AT&T), Verizon was putting pressure on BlackBerry to come up with a competitor. 

If in doubt, just say no. BlackBerry’s response: “Sure, here’s the Storm.” And never was a phone’s name more appropriate. We hate to say it was one of the worst phones ever. But it was one of the worst phones ever.

The idea was simple - a slab, like the iPhone. But created in a rush and with a fraction of the R&D investment. The keyboard BlackBerry users loved was gone and replaced with an on-screen version which required the whole screen to be pressed in for every touch. Yep, it was as painful as it sounded.

It was a disaster from a user interface perspective, and a disaster for RIM’s bottom line when the phones started breaking in their thousands and Verizon demanded RIM pay to repair them.

An ill-fated Storm 2 followed, but that didn’t right this wrong, and BlackBerry’s subsequent foray into the tablet space with the PlayBook appeared to make things worse. Launching a device that initially couldn’t run BlackBerry staples like email, contacts and calendar properly without an accompanying BlackBerry phone was a universe away from the all-in-one convenience of the iPad, which was well established by then. To many, it cemented the notion in their minds that RIM had lost the plot.

3. Crack attack 

BlackBerries were fun - but they were also addictive. The term ‘Crackberry’ was coined as a joke term, the implication being that these devices got users hooked like a Class A drug. But the compulsion was real for so many. They just couldn’t put them down. 

In fairness, before the BlackBerry came along, all phones could really do was play Snake and send an SMS. Creating a ringtone by methodically typing in a bunch of numbers didn’t elicit a dopamine response in the brain like getting an instant reply to your email, which you’d incredibly been able to send while riding on the bus. 

So it wouldn’t be fair to put all the blame at RIM’s feet here. We got something new and exciting and we loved it. But users could barely switch off. And that lure of the flashing red notification light fueled that desire to constantly check notifications - something that’s prevalent even today with both iOS and Android giving options and tips on how to reduce screen time. The legacy of the Crackberry lives on, if not for the right reasons. 

4. Arrogance 

Pride comes before the fall, as they say. And BlackBerry learned this the hard way. To stay on top, you can’t stand still but RIM found itself doing just that.

When the iPhone launched, it couldn’t give us push email (it couldn’t even give us copy and paste!). The thought of Microsoft-powered Exchange servers (favorites of the corporate world) accessible on an iOS device was unthinkable. There were no outside apps, whereas BlackBerry allowed users to install programs downloaded from the web with ease. And the keyboard looked way harder to use than the tried-and-tested-and-loved BlackBerry board. 

“We’ll be fine,” co-boss Mike Lazaridis reportedly said at the time. Famous last words. Apple and Google were nipping at BlackBerry’s heels by that point.

And as soon as Steve Jobs opened the iPhone up to outside developers and other networks, it was the beginning of the end for BlackBerry. Devs could make actual money for a device the world wanted. Nobody was interested in writing for BlackBerry and its dwindling user base. BlackBerry’s days were numbered. 

5. Down and out 

Late 2011 was when BlackBerry owners saw their collective anxiety hit an all-time high. At first, a few users started noticing their devices weren’t connecting. And within minutes, millions more weren’t. 

BlackBerry’s servers were down. And with them, tens of millions of devices around the world.

Remember, these were devices used by multibillion dollar businesses that suddenly found hundreds or even thousands of staff members unable to connect. 

RIM ran its own service - that’s what made BlackBerries so secure and almost independent of the phone networks. But it meant when things went bad, it was on its own. There was no external backup system to switch to. Users had to sit tight; RIM had to figure out the problem as more and more delayed data hit the network and created a massive backlog. 

The blame was laid on what HQ called a ‘core switch failure’ - but even after the lights came back on, the exodus had begun. Co-boss Mike Lazaridis publicly apologized but the share price didn’t recover. iPhones - which had been gaining more traction - were looking more attractive to both IT departments and consumers. BlackBerry was a dead man walking. It would limp on for a few more years and the brand would continue under new owners. But the mass love for these little devices was gone. And BlackBerry would never recover. 

• What we know about the upcoming BlackBerry 5G phone

The Blackberry 5G remained one of the most anticipated smartphones we'd heard about, ever since it was first announced in mid-2020... up until the project was officially canceled in 2022.

This was a much-hyped revival for the nostalgia-riddled Blackberry brand, though one being pushed by a company other than Blackberry itself.

The company at the helm of this ill-fated project was security company OnwardMobility, which had evidently bought the rights to put out new Blackberry phones. 

Companies putting out handsets under other names is nothing new - HMD Global makes Nokia phones, and before OnwardMobility, TCL was using the Blackberry name.

But this new project seemed different - OnwardMobility was rather new to the hardware game, and seemed motivated by an infectious passion for Blackberry phones which inspired fans of the brand.

Well, even the best-laid plans can fall apart, and in February 2022 OnwardMobility confirmed "no longer be proceeding with the development of an ultra-secure smartphone with a physical keyboard". 

So what happened? And how did it happen? Well, let's follow along with the events.

BlackBerry 5G timeline

The Blackberry line hasn't exactly been dormant since original company Research In Motion, or Blackberry Limited, stopped making phones under the name in 2017. However the hey-day of QWERT keyboard-toting productivity phones was certainly in the rear-view mirror.

From 2016 to late 2020, Chinese tech firm TCL signed up to release phones under the Blackberry name, and we saw a small smattering of devices like the KeyOne. However it seems that TCL struggled with the same issue that Research In Motion did - in a world of fantastic touch-screen phones, physical keyboards had become a niche proposition.

That's not to say that there's no place for keyboard phones, and some users swear by them.

This kind of user got to come out in force in mid-2020 when a little-known Texan company called OnwardMobility purchased the rights to the Blackberry name.

You can see a video of the company's CEO, Peter Franklin, announcing the new Blackberry below.

Fans were excited: OnwardMobility promised a 5G phone with a QWERTY keyboard, lots of features and top-notch security. More, the website implied future Blackberry 5G products would be coming too.

OnwardMobility also promised that this device would be coming to consumer markets too, so anyone could buy it.

Understandably, there was a lot of excitement. Blackberry phones are coming back? And back with a bang? Take my money!

At the time, OnwardMobility pledged to release the device in 2021, and in an interview with Nikkei Asia in February of the year, Frankling said 'more details will be announced within the next few months.' At the time, we thought that could mean a product reveal as soon as May 2021.

Clearly that wasn't to be, though, as May sailed past with nary a word from the fruity company. And then so did June.

In July 2021, OnwardMobility opened up a waitlist for updates about the upcoming 5G BlackBerry phone. That suggested a release is nearing, but the terminology used also suggested that it may be a bit of a longer wait.

A longer wait was indeed in store, because 2021 limped onwards and, by the time it had collapsed in a pile and made way for 2022, we still hadn't heard anything about the Blackberry 5G. At all.

Some fans were upset, more were confused. Many had just forgotten about the device entirely.

The radio silence was finally broken in January 2022 when the company confirmed that the phone had faced delays but was still in the works. Well, that's not bad news, right? A delayed phone is better than no phone at all!

That is, until a report from a Blackberry fan site posted a report suggesting that the  Blackberry 5G dream was, in fact dead. Well, that's not good.

Less than two weeks later, the report was confirmed - and not only was OnwardMobility shuttering the Blackberry project, but it was closing down itself.

In a post on its website the company confirmed "it is with great sadness that we announce that OnwardMobility will be shutting down", and said "we will no longer be proceeding with the development of an ultra-secure smartphone with a physical keyboard".

So dream of a new Blackberry 5G are dead... for now. But as we can see with TCL and OnwardMobility picking up the baton, tech companies won't let the Blackberry name rest, and perhaps in a few years, we'll see another brand try.

So what happened?

The Blackberry 5G from OnwardMobility isn't coming because the company shut down. But digging deeper, what happened to delay and then cancel the launch of this device?

Officially, there's not been any comment on this topic, and the message OnwardMobility posted on its website doesn't say anything. But that report from a Blackberry fan site we mentioned has some theories. 

Apparently, the current CEO of Blackberry Limited (a company which still makes software and security tech) has been trying to distance the company from smartphones, as a recent sale in Blackberry's patents suggests. The theory is that the CEO soured on the idea of a new Blackberry smartphone.

Beyond that, it's very possible that OnwardMobility found it'd bitten off more than it could chew. We often see new companies try to make smartphones and give up after a few tries, and presumably it's a lot harder than it seems.

That's all speculation though, and unless someone breaks the silence, it's impossible to know for sure. Hopefully that'll happen, as we're sure it's a fascinating story.

• The best 5G phones available now
• Or check out the best business smartphones today

You’d be forgiven for forgetting there was a BlackBerry 5G in the works, as it was scheduled to land in the first half of 2021, and pretty much all news of it dried up in the second half of the year.

This led many to wonder whether it was actually still coming at all, and the good news is that it is, at least according to OnwardMobility (the company making the phone).

In a brief blog post, the company has explained that it faced “various delays that prevented us from shipping in 2021”, but that the company is still working on an “ultra-secure 5G enterprise smartphone” with a keyboard, and that it will be providing more regular updates starting this month.

The company hasn’t said when the BlackBerry 5G will actually now ship, but from the wording of the statement it sounds like additional information on the phone might be released soon, so hopefully we’ll have more details before long.

Interestingly, there's also no mention of the BlackBerry brand name in the statement, so it's possible that the phone won't now launch with BlackBerry branding - but that's speculation for now.

In any case, we’re hopeful that it will launch sooner rather than later. Given that the goal was to ship in 2021 (and the first half at that), it’s entirely possible that the device is close to being finished, even with the delays faced by OnwardMobility. But we can’t be certain until we hear more, so stay tuned for updates.

Analysis: what we know about the BlackBerry 5G so far

Given how long it’s been since we last heard news about the BlackBerry 5G, a refresher might be in order.

That said, there’s not really much to know. OnwardMobility has previously said that the BlackBerry 5G will have a top-of-the-line camera and run Android. We also know that it will have a physical keyboard, support 5G, and that it’s aimed primarily at enterprise, government, and security-conscious users who want a productivity-centric smartphone.

Beyond that it’s anyone’s guess really. In fact, we don’t even know what the phone is called, with BlackBerry 5G just being a term we’re using for convenience until we learn the official name. And as noted above, there's a chance this isn't even a BlackBerry anymore.

This lack of information might mean it’s still a long way from launch, but equally it’s not a super high-profile handset, so the makers may have been able to keep things quiet.

Hopefully we won’t be waiting too long for it to launch, but if you can’t wait then there’s always the new Astro Slide – a potentially similar handset that was announced at CES 2022.

• Check out all the best smartphones

One more smartphone has shown up at CES 2022 - the Astro Slide reminds us of the upcoming Blackberry 5G, because it has 5G compatibility and a physical keyboard, but... well, the Astro Slide is actually available to buy.

This is the third smartphone by independent London manufacturer Planet Computers, and after being announced via a Kickstarter campaign in May 2020, it's had an official launch at the annual tech event CES 2022. 

It seems that the phone is shipping soon, too. That's at least according to the Kickstarter page, which says it has been delayed from the original date in March 2021. 

Judging by the stats on the page, nearly 4,000 units have been sold so far, but you can still pre-order it now if you find the device interesting.

And there's good reason for you to like the device, especially if you're a fan of the physical keyboard that very few phones have nowadays. The keyboard is backlit, so you can use it in the dark, and by the sounds of it can also be remapped and re-ordered depending on how you like to type.

The Astro Slide also touts 5G connectivity, Android 11 software, a 48MP main camera, two USB-C ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, wireless charging, a microSD slot, a 4,000mAh battery, a 6.4-inch AMOLED FHD+ screen, a 13MP selfie camera, the Dimensity 800 chipset, 8GB RAM and 128GB storage.

Those are some pretty decent mid-range specs - the RRP is €819, which converts to around $940, £680, AU$1,295, so the price fits if you factor in the moving mechanism, and it ships worldwide too so you can pick it up in all those regions.

• These are all the smartphones that launched at CES 2022

Check out all of TechRadar's CES 2022 coverage. We're bringing you all the breaking tech news and launches, everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops and smart home gadgets.  

Own an older BlackBerry phone? You will likely soon find your handset unusable as certain devices from the company won't be able to make phone calls, send SMS messages and complete other functions from January 4.

BlackBerry has confirmed it is dropping support for BlackBerry OS devices, but this doesn't impact more recent devices from the company that run Android software.

A statement from the company said, "The legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions, will no longer be available after January 4, 2022.  

"As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS and 9-1-1 functionality."

The last device to run this software was introduced in 2015, which was the BlackBerry Leap. This means anyone using these older devices will find their devices are at best unreliable, and at their worst they will be unusable as a mobile phone.

If you own a BlackBerry device running Android software, those will continue to get support.

The BlackBerry brand has now been sold to a company called Onward Mobility that has said it will continue to makes devices with the name. It has previously promised a 5G BlackBerry device in 2021, but it's now thought that'll be introduced in 2022.

Analysis: Inevitable, but frustrating for some

Older BlackBerry devices losing support isn't a huge surprise, and it's unlikely many of these devices are still in use. Nevertheless, it is a sad turn of events for those who like using these unique devices.

2015 was the last time we saw a BlackBerry OS device, and while that is a long time in the world of smartphones it isn't a huge amount of time for those who want to remain with the same smartphone for a long time.

It would have been feasible to buy a BlackBerry OS device in 2017 or so brand new, so that would only be around four years of use before the phone lost all support for basic functionality.

BlackBerry's message here is also clear that it won't be usable, rather than it just losing access to certain features. It'll mean you can't even reliably phone the emergency services, so this will be unuasable for the average person.

• Everything we know about the BlackBerry 5G

Via Phone Arena

We were told a 5G BlackBerry phone was coming out in 2021. It would have made a pleasant break from the waves of Samsungs, Xiaomis and Motorolas we review every year. This has not panned out. 

We aren’t surprised. Original owner RIM stopped being the force behind BlackBerry in 2016 when the name was licensed to Chinese tech giant TCL. TCL took a leaner approach but its reign ended in 2020, and then the brand passed on to OnwardMobility, an American company. 

BlackBerry returning to the US is a refreshing change after years of Chinese brands dominating most new developments in mobile. But where TCL was already a huge manufacturing operation, OnwardMobility had to set up new manufacturing partnerships for this BlackBerry project. 

We’re seeing the last bits of the BlackBerry brand squeezed from the tube here, but getting them out is harder than you might think. Could there be other phone brands out there worth bringing back to life? 

Let’s dig back through the years of smartphones to find the series that might be worth a refresh while we wait to see if the 5G BlackBerry is real or 2022’s vaporware in waiting. 

Wileyfox (2015-2018) 

The UK’s Wileyfox lasted around three years, from 2015 to 2018, but we have some good memories of using its phones. Wileyfox made affordable Androids with surprisingly decent innards, like a OnePlus for the budget buyer. Back in 2015 Wileyfox seemed directly inspired by that company, in the CyanogenMod software and finishes it used, as well as its aggressive pricing strategy. 

Now OnePlus has been subsumed into the guts of giant Oppo, we want more of that renegade spirit back in the world of phones. 

There’s even better tech for Wileyfox to use in this era too. Both MediaTek and Qualcomm now offer lower mid-range chipsets that can handle top-end games like Fortnite well, and make Android navigation feel pretty similar to that of a top-end phone. 

As the CyanogenMod software has been discontinued, Wileyfox could perhaps team up with Google and make these Android One devices. Phones like the Swift 2 were real no-nonsense handsets. It would be great to see a Wileyfox Swift 3 that completely sidestepped the trend of packing the back with loads of near-useless cameras, to make something a bit more like a Pixel 4a: putting what limited budget there is into good-quality hardware, rather than a lot of the extra stuff. 

Could it happen? After Wileyfox’s demise, STK took on the brand but did little with it. Now we are several years on, much of the limited brand recognition Wileyfox once had has dissipated, meaning it has likely gone for good. 

Panasonic Lumix (2015) 

Back in 2015 Panasonic made one of the neatest phones ever made, and hardly anyone noticed. It was the Panasonic Lumix CM1, an Android with a 1-inch camera sensor. 

Only a few phones have had a sensor this large, like the Sharp Aquos R6 (only available in Japan) and the eye-wateringly expensive Sony Xperia Pro-I. The odd thing is the CM1 actually went further than that Sony phone and did it more than five years earlier. 

Where the Xperia Pro-I uses a cropped portion of its 1-inch sensor, making it such in name only, the Panasonic Lumix CM1 used all 20 megapixels of the core hardware. Hardly anyone bought a CM1, to the best of our knowledge, but we’d love to see what the company’s engineers could do with a sensor of this scale matched with modern computational techniques to boost low-light performance. 

We’d also have to grant Panasonic a couple of years and a few tens of millions of dollars to invest in imaging algorithms but, hey, we’re dealing in a fantasy scenario here. Or wouldn’t it be great to see Google’s engineers team up with Panasonic’s own and make the best single rear camera phone in the world?

There’s actually a quasi-distant relative of this Panasonic dream phone in existence already, the Leica Leitz Phone 1. Leica is a long-term partner of Panasonic and some of its lower-end dedicated cameras are based on Panasonic designs, tweaked with a bit of extra Leica gloss. The Leitz phone is a tweaked Sharp Aquos R6. 

If Panasonic made a rival, it might result in an awkward family meet-up around the dinner table, but a little tech drama that doesn’t revolve around who exploits our data the most would make a welcome change. 

Could it happen? No chance. Panasonic has spent the last few years exiting areas of business in which it can’t thrive. It abandoned telecoms in 2020, the semiconductor sector in 2019, and in 2021 announced it would stop in-house production of TVs. And Panasonic made some of the best high-end TVs in the world. Panasonic shareholders would implode if it tried to re-enter the smartphone business. 

N-Gage (2002-2006) 

N-Gage was a Nokia gaming phone brand from the early 2000s. It was a total flop and the name has long been the butt of jokes. But it was a neat idea that could be brought back to life beautifully in partnership with one-time Nokia proprietor Microsoft. 

This is a very roundabout way of saying we want an Xbox Game Pass phone. It wouldn’t play the games. It would be a portal to stream the games over Wi-Fi and 5G, and have sturdy clip-on controllers a bit like a Nintendo Switch. 

It would also be just about the only phone around with a true 1080p screen, not the ultra-tall style that has been the norm in smartphones since 2017. Without the controllers attached you’d have a stout little oddball with, let’s say, a 5.6-inch screen. We’ll call him stubby. 

Slot the pads on and it becomes more like a Steam Deck you can actually fit in your pocket. 

Is this a feasible idea? It’d probably have a better chance if you left out the “N-Gage” part, which would see it laughed off the internet on day one. But it could prioritize controller feel and the strength of its Wi-Fi and 5G antennas to offer a much better, and less bulky, game streaming experience than the alternatives. 

While we’re here, let’s also show a little love for the N-Gage’s catalog of games. The platform was criticized for having a lame library, but it comes off rather well 10 years on. 

N-Gage had Super Monkey Ball, Call of Duty, Gameloft’s Asphalt series, FIFA, Colin McRae Rally, Civilisation, Rayman 3, Sega Rally, Sonic, Tomb Raider, Virtua Tennis, Worms World Party, Splinter Cell, an Elder Scrolls game, and more. And many of these were full 3D titles, years before the Apple App Store launched. We were in an era of basic Java-based phone games in those days. You can criticize the N-Gage’s execution, but the ambition? No way. 

Could it happen? With the N-Gage branding? Not a chance. The passing years has only ripened the sulfurous whiff that hangs around the name. We’d be disappointed if Microsoft hadn’t at least formulated a prototype on paper or had discussions about potential hardware partners for such a project, though. Today’s gaming phones are mostly normal phones with uglier designs. This would be something else entirely.  

Palm (2009-2010)

Even mentioning the word Palm is probably enough to get you labeled a boomer these days. But you had to be there, folks. In 2009 Palm launched the Pre, a lovely little smartphone that combined the keyboard of a BlackBerry with the sort of friendly slickness you might associate with a high-end Android or iPhone. 

Only a small handful of Palm models were made before the company was sold to HP. It continued the series for a brief period before coming to a strangely abrupt end. The announcement of the cancellation of the entire range was made just a day after the Palm Pre 3 was officially released. 

Palm coming back to the smartphone game is a horrible, impossible idea. But we don’t hate the notion of trying for a Palm phone that adopts and re-phone’ifies the software. 

You see, Palm’s phones had software called webOS. This was eventually sold to LG, which uses it for the interface of its TVs. LG has now left the smartphone business, leaving it free to license out the streaming service-packed webOS to the virtually non-existent Palm, in order to sell phones to anxious urbanites keen to get away from social media but not Netflix. 

There was actually a Palm phone released not too long ago. In 2019, the Palm Phone was made by TCL under license. It was a tiny Android with rubbish battery life intended to help you trim down on your phone use, but it didn’t really do so. A “real” Palm phone could be, at the very least, bizarrely interesting. 

Could it happen? The original Palm doesn’t even exist anymore. TCL’s half-hearted Palm return was a flop and the idea of re-engineering webOS back into a phone platform is, let’s be honest, ridiculous. 

Dell (2010-2012) 

Did you know Dell used to make phones? It was a key proponent of the ‘phablet’ trend that surfaced a few years after Android was introduced. There was the 5-inch Dell Streak, the smaller Dell Venue and the Windows phone Dell Venue Pro. They all landed in 2010 and by the end of 2012 the company had left the phone business entirely. 

Why should Dell return? It honestly has little to add other than that it is an actual American company, with branding that is still respected among the tech-buying audience. 

Yet, wouldn’t you consider buying a Dell XPS phone if it was just as good as the rival Samsung? Apple and Google are the only major American companies that make phones these days, now that Motorola’s phone arm is owned by Lenovo. 

There’s currently no US giant that just makes phone hardware. Dell’s shareholders would hate the idea, but a return to the phone business would — strangely enough – add significantly to the diversity in the pool.  

Could it happen? It would be an exceedingly bad idea for Dell to return to phones. While we can already picture a Dell XPS 6 with a sleek metal back that looks a bit like an XPS 13 laptop’s lid, the investment needed to make its cameras competitive would be huge. An Alienware (Dell’s gaming brand) phone might make more sense, but would only be interesting if it attempts something ambitious like our N-Gage Xbox Game Pass phone fantasy.   

• The upcoming phones you need to know about in 2022

A new BlackBerry smartphone is still in development with a post on the brand's parent company's website suggesting we'll be hearing more about from it soon about the release of its first 5G smartphone.

The BlackBerry brand is now owned by little known security company OnwardMobility, and it's expected it will release a new BlackBerry handset by the end of this year.

In fact, in 2020 the company said we could expect a new BlackBerry Android phone with 5G connectivity by the end of the first half of 2021. That hasn't happened, but this latest post suggests the phone is still in development and it may be nearing release.

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On OnwardMobility's website, you can now join a waitlist for updates about the upcoming smartphone as well as ensure you're among the first to pre-order the new device.

OnwardMobility calls this its "Pre-Commitment Program" and it's said to exist so it can "expand engagement with customers interested in purchasing the new and innovative BlackBerry 5G smartphones."

The plural there - smartphones - suggests OnwardMobility could be working on more than one Blackberry phone.

Analysis: what does a 2021 BlackBerry look like?

At one stage, BlackBerry was one of the most popular phone brands on the planet. Now, we haven't seen a new smartphone with the BlackBerry branding since the Key2 LE that was introduced near the end of 2018.

Since then, TCL has stopped producing smartphones under the branding and in August 2020 OnwardMobility took on that mantel. We've yet to learn what it will do for BlackBerry phones.

It's unclear how a new BlackBerry smartphone will be able to compete with the best smartphones of 2021. For example, we'd expect phones like the iPhone 12, Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and Oppo Find X3 Pro to have higher specs than this upcoming smartphone.

That's based on the way BlackBerry phones have changed in recent years, with a focus on more niche elements such as a physical keyboard, rather than offering the absolute best specs.

OnwardMobility has confirmed it will be including a QWERTY physical keyboard on this smartphone though, and for some that may be enough for this phone to stand out from the rest of the crowd.

• Everything we know so far about the BlackBerry 5G smartphone

In late 2020 we heard that yet another attempt to revive the BlackBerry phone brand  was in the works, this time from US company OnwardMobility, and it seems the first new Blackberry phone could get a release schedule soon.

Financial paper Nikkei Asia spoke to Peter Franklin, OnwardMobility's CEO, as part of a report on this Blackberry revival. A few important pieces of information are mentioned in the article, but the key one is that 'more details will be announced within the next few months'.

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That makes it sound like we could hear a release date for the first BlackBerry revival phone very soon, or at least find out more about the new smartphone, although according to Franklin, the company is still in the process of developing its distribution plan.

Elsewhere in the article, we learn that OnwardMobility is making the new BlackBerry phones with Foxconn, a company that manufactures smartphones, Kindles, games consoles and more. We'd already heard the new phones will have physical keyboards and 5G connectivity, but in this new article, we hear having a 'top-of-the-line camera' is a focus too.

Does the world still have a sweet tooth?

While BlackBerry devices were all the rage many years ago, the original manufacturer ceased production in 2016. Rights to making devices under the brand name passed to Chinese corporation TCL until 2020, when TCL ditched the license, and that's when OnwardMobility got its hands on the name.

It seems that OnwardMobility thinks it can make it succeed where TCL and BlackBerry Limited failed, though only time will tell.

There's certainly a market for phones with physical keyboards, albeit a slim one - the F(x)tec Pro1 in 2019 had such a slide-out board - but we'll have to see if the new BlackBerry phone has more tricks, specs and features up its sleeves to make it an attractive proposition.

By the sounds of it, we'll hear more about this new BlackBerry phone in the coming months, and we'll bring you all the latest information as and when we get it.

• BlackBerry sells smartphone patents to Huawei

A new BlackBerry phone is coming in 2021, it will be 5G-capable, and yes – it will have a physical keyboard.

A new company has licensed the BlackBerry name after TCL dropped it in early 2020. This seemingly new player in the phones world, OnwardMobility, announced it’s producing a new handset with the storied BlackBerry name.

OnwardMobility is working with Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile Limited to get the phones out in the first half of 2021 to North American and European markets. Whether the phone will reach consumer markets, however, is unclear, as the press release announcing the BlackBerry 5G phone posits it as an enterprise solution for companies that need ‘a secure, feature-rich 5G-ready phone that enhances productivity.’

“BlackBerry smartphones are known for protecting communications, privacy, and data,” OnwardMobility CEO Peter Franklin said in the press release. “This is an incredible opportunity for OnwardMobility to bring next-generation 5G devices to market with the backing of BlackBerry and FIH Mobile.”

OnwardMobility doesn’t list any other products on its website, only referring to ‘future BlackBerry 5G smartphones.’ Its about page claims the company was created to deliver secure mobile device solutions to enterprise, government and business – so we’re not sure if fans of the brand will be able to pick up one of the next BlackBerry phones at their local retailer, though the announcement video (embedded above) does suggest it will be available for consumers.

It's also unclear if, or when, it's coming to other regions.

Update: OnwardMobility responded to TechRadar's inquiries and confirmed the device will be headed to consumer markets:

"More than half of the global population own smartphones today, so the market is enormous," OnwardMobility CEO Peter Franklin said. "What’s been missing, however, is the ultra-secure and productivity-centric smartphone that can address the needs of enterprise users, government users and security-conscious consumers – and that’s the gap we expect to fill."

• Keyboards? The industry has moved on to foldable phones
• If it's cheap enough, perhaps it'll make our best budget phones list
• The current productivity king: the new Samsung Galaxy Note 20

BlackBerry: once a secure business phone, always a secure business phone?

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry phones were some of the first true smartphones to become popular among consumers, but they first got popular amid corporate clients shopping for devices that would safeguard info kept and sent by employees. 

While BlackBerry hemorrhaged market share to proper smartphones following the iPhone and Android platforms, it remained a trusted enterprise device for years. OnwardMobility is clearly tapping into that legacy of corporate trust – and productivity, since they’ve already committed to including a physical keyboard on the 2021 device.

TCL’s BlackBerry phones had physical keyboards, too, but weren’t successful enough for the phones industry underdog to keep the license. In short: people may be nostalgic for the days of physical keyboards, but not enough to go out of their way to buy them in large numbers. 

Phones have changed since BlackBerry devices reigned, and the current tall, narrow format have meant that keyboards shoved to the bottom, like TCL’s BlackBerry Key2, aren’t terribly comfortable to type on. We’ll see if OnwardMobility’s phone ends up with a different design as it gets closer to its release window in the first half of 2021. 

Via SlashGear

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The current manufacturer of BlackBerry devices has confirmed it won't be making any new phones that sport the iconic brand name. 

TCL Communication has produced BlackBerry devices since late 2016 - those include phones like the BlackBerry KeyOne and Key2 - but now it has confirmed its partnership is ending.

• Our review of the BlackBerry Key2
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The company won't sell anymore BlackBerry devices after August 31, 2020, and it has no rights to "design, manufacture or sell any new BlackBerry mobile devices" beyond that, either.

TCL Communication will continue to support warranties for devices until August 31, 2022 but it hasn't confirmed whether it'll be offering new software updates to existing devices through to that date.

We've asked TCL Communication if that would be the case, but we've yet to hear back from the company.

This throws the BlackBerry name into an uncertain place. If no other companies decide to take on the brand name from BlackBerry Limited, it may mean we won't see any further devices with the branding.

BlackBerry Limited remains a company that focuses on other areas rather than smartphones, but it hasn't produced its own handsets for some years now. 

That means it'd be unlikely for the company to take on the responsibility of manufacturing again, but we may see another company take on the mantel in the future.

BlackBerry was at one stage one of the world's biggest phone brands with the company selling over 50 million new handsets in 2011 alone. The company's market share has declined rapidly in recent years though as it has struggled to compete with other Android manufacturers and the iPhone.

• BlackBerry: Why we're staying security-first

BlackBerry may no longer be the big name in the smartphone industry it once was but it continues to make smartphones. However, a recent comment from a company executive suggests it won’t be embracing 5G as quickly as some other companies.

The next-gen internet technology is now included on a variety of top-end phones, but a TCL executive - the company behind current BlackBerry handsets - has said the company has no plans to include 5G on a BlackBerry product, according to PocketLint.

General Manager of Marketing at TCL, Stefan Streit, told an audience “It's not an entertainment device and you can already get your email really fast. We can have a lot of fun with 5G and where to apply it - maybe in an 8K TV or a fridge…just not a BlackBerry.”

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That may seem like an odd choice considering how BlackBerry users are often business-focused and may benefit from the speed, but TCL is mostly now focusing on mid-range handsets and below, while 5G remains a flagship feature, so this isn't totally surprising.

That said, TCL isn’t against 5G technology on phones, confirming it plans to make affordable devices with the technology included in the next year. It’s expected we’ll see a 5G Alcatel phone - a brand that is also managed by TCL - in 2020. So it's really just BlackBerry that will have to do without for now.

• What actually is 5G?

Via GSMArena

Having once dominated instant messaging conversations across the planet, BlackBerry Messenger or BBM is closing down its consumer operations on May 31.

"The technology industry... is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on," explains current developer Emtek in a blog post.

If you're still using BBM, you'll need to download any your photos, videos and other files you've shared before the service shuts down for good.

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After May 31, the apps will no longer work and you won't be able to access your conversation histories. If you've got questions, Emtek has put up a FAQ.

Fond memories

"We are grateful for your support and wish to thank everyone, especially our users, partners, and employees, for being part of the BBM consumer service journey," says Emtek.

"We hope you will cherish many fond memories of BBM consumer service that helped shape messenger platforms to become what they are today."

And that's no exaggeration – BBM first appeared in 2005, way before any of the modern alternatives like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger had been invented. In the end though, the competition was too great.

If you still need a BBM fix, BlackBerry Limited (which retained the rights to the business version of BBM) has said that BBM Enterprise will be made available on iOS and Android for free for a year, with a $2.49-per-year subscription fee after that.

• Google Maps is testing a new instant messaging feature

Via Gizmodo

It was only a year ago that former phone manufacturer BlackBerry sued Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp over messaging patents. Within months, Facebook countersued BlackBerry for similar reasons.

Those two cases are still in litigation, but BlackBerry has taken the fight to new levels, this time by filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Twitter.

According to the complaint filed, BlackBerry claims Twitter has infringed on six of its patents covering notifications and mobile advertising.

• BlackBerry KeyOne review
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Same-same but different

While BlackBerry sued Facebook for things like tagging people in photos, combining mobile gaming and messaging, use of cryptographic techniques for security, and status updates designed to optimize battery life, the former phone maker claims Twitter “created mobile messaging applications that co-opt BlackBerry’s innovations, using a number of the innovative user interface and functionality enhancing features that made BlackBerry’s products such a critical and commercial success in the first place”.

As per the 98-page complaint, available to read on Crackberry (the news site and forum for BlackBerry users), the company states that Twitter’s use of “BlackBerry’s mobile messaging innovations” has “resulted in a substantial and undeserved windfall”. 

After trying to resolve the matter out of court, BlackBerry is now seeking “adequate compensation” for the use of its intellectual property.

[Via TechCrunch]

• Facebook’s 'clear history' feature to arrive in 2019

When the BlackBerry Key2 LE, the firm told us it was created in response to customer feedback asking for a more affordable version of QWERTY phones like the BlackBerry Key2.

A less expensive, more mainstream version of a flagship phone is a concept that's been tried and proven many times, but we've also seen some 'lite' versions that should never have existed. This is one of the good ones: it takes the best features of the Key2 and trims some of the fat to create an affordable, if unexciting, work phone.

No one's going to buy this instead of an iPhone XS, but big companies buying in phones for their employees might well see it as the perfect business BlackBerry.

The Key2 LE offers a significant cost saving over the Key2: the 32GB Key2 LE model is $399/£349 (roughly AU$560) and the 64GB version comes in at $449/£399 (around AU$630), while the lowest model of the standard Key2 is $649/£579 (approximately AU$910).

While the more expensive phone has been available since June 2018, its newer sibling launched in the UK, US, Canada, the Middle East, Germany and France in October.

Design and display

• 150.25 x 71.8 x 8.35mm, 156g
• 3.5mm headphone jack and USB-C
• 4.5-inch 1080 x 1620 IPS display

The BlackBerry Key2 LE is a surprising phone. The 'Champagne' handset looks like it will be weighty with its thick gold-banded edge, but the first thing you’ll notice on picking it up is how light it is.

That's because the metallic edge isn't actually metal, it's polycarbonate – but unless you look closely, or tap it with a fingernail, it's not obvious.

The back panel has a textured, soft and rubberish feel, which means it’s not one of those irritating phones that slips off your desk without a case (looking at you, all glass-backed phones ever).

Oddly, the BlackBerry logo has been embossed in silver, so it doesn’t match all the pale gold accents on the phone. Other than that, the back is pretty understated, with just the dual-camera enclosure (again ringed in silver rather than gold) and dual-tone LED flash at the top.

The chunky sides remind us of an Xperia device, but with rounded corners rather than square. 

BlackBerry calls this an 'iconic U-shape', which it isn't, but it does look very BlackBerry. As you might expect with that physical keyboard, it's not water-resistant like some Androids.

On the left edge – which is thick enough to actually balance the phone on its side – is the SIM tray, which on our model allows for either two SIM cards or a SIM and a microSD card, but this will vary by territory.

The top edge has a full 3.5mm headphone jack, while the bottom edge has a centered USB-C port and two sets of three drilled holes.

Only the right-hand one contains a speaker, which means it’s easy to muffle all the sound from the phone with the heel of your hand. It does put out clear and strong audio though.

On the right edge there's a volume rocker, textured power key and – one of our favorite things about the Key2 – the 'convenience key', which can be programmed to launch up to three shortcuts, including speed dial and apps.

The key can automatically do different things in different situations – when connected to Bluetooth, or on a particular wireless network, for instance. Very smart.

If you only choose one shortcut, pressing the key will automatically do that thing. If you choose two or three, it will pop up a little menu, so you can select the one you want.

On the front of the Key2 LE, we've got the main selling point – the full QWERTY keyboard with fingerprint sensor built into the space bar, and a 4.5-inch display.

It has thicker bezels than many current phones, which is understandable given the price, but the decision to include three soft navigation keys in addition to a full physical keyboard means there's even less screen space than it looks when switched off. 

Still, it's a quality panel, with 434 pixels per inch and realistic color reproduction rather than the over-saturation many manufacturers opt for. 

Its top brightness isn't especially dazzling, but it does at least have Gorilla Glass protection, so it shouldn't smash easily.

Like the Key2, it's a classy-looking phone, but that's more surprising at this price point. The BlackBerry Key2 LE definitely looks like it costs more than it does.

Battery life

• 3,000mAh
• USB-C and fast charge
• Just about lasts a day

A 3,000mAh battery is pretty standard these days, but it goes a little further on the BlackBerry Key2 LE due to the handset having a smaller display than many competing phones.

Using the Key2 LE for normal daily use including calls, social media, streaming, reading and online shopping, we found it usually just about lasted the day, but no more.

A couple of heavy-use days saw the phone need a top-up in the evening, but that’s fair for the price point. We'd definitely take a power pack with us for nights out or important events, though.

Despite being a lower-cost phone, the charging port is USB-C. This is becoming standard on even more budget handsets, but having seen an old-style micro USB port on the Honor 8X recently, it's still appreciated on the BlackBerry.

The included fast charger uses the Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 standard, which means it powers up quickly (BlackBerry says 50% in 36 minutes, which was about accurate in our tests) and also offers you the option of a quick ‘boost’ charge.

Boost charge doesn’t actually change the power delivery to the phone, it just turns off some features while the handset charges to reduce power drain, like a less severe version of enabling airplane mode to charge faster. It doesn’t make a huge difference, but in a pinch it is useful. There’s no wireless charging though, as you’d expect at this price.

The Key2 LE keeps the charging animation from previous BlackBerry phones, which shows how much power the phone has at a glance with a colored line around the edge of the screen (the line turns off automatically when it’s dark). This is really handy, and something we wish would make it into all Androids.

When we ran our usual power test on the BlackBerry Key2 LE, which involves setting brightness to max and streaming a 90-minute HD video on full screen with accounts syncing in the background, the result was decent: from a 100% charge, the phone still had 78% remaining at the end of the video.

That 22% loss obviously doesn’t compare to the BlackBerry Key2’s 11%, but considering the price difference, it could be a lot worse.

Other phones in the Key2 LE price range performed better in the same test: the Honor 10 lost 16%, the Huawei Mate 20 Lite 14%, and the BlackBerry Motion just 10%. So, although the Key2 LE will get you through the day most of the time, it’s not the phone to choose if you want maximum stamina for your money.

Camera

• 13MP + 5MP dual rear cameras (f/2.2 and f/2.4)
• 4K video recording at 30fps
• 8MP front-facing camera

Given the price and BlackBerry’s focus on business features, we weren’t expecting much from the Key2 LE’s cameras, but they pleasantly surprised us.

The Key2 LE uses the BlackBerry camera app rather than the native Android one, which seems a little unnecessary given that it doesn't really add anything, but does mean it’s quite straightforward to use. 

No bells and whistles here, just some filters, auto/manual, HDR, portrait mode, panorama, scanner and slow-mo.

For some reason, there's also an option to automatically add the BlackBerry logo – no, worse, the BlackBerry Key2 LE logo specifically – to all your photos. There is definitely someone somewhere who turned that on by accident and now has the photo equivalent of ‘sent from my BlackBerry’ on all their Facebook pics.

Quality-wise, photos from both the front and rear cameras vary considerably depending on the light. Pictures taken in strong light, like our photo below of the black cat in the cabinet, come out crisp and detailed.

But both the front and rear cameras struggle in less-than-perfect light, with HDR-enhanced photos looking too surreal, skewed white balance on indoor photos, and low light shots coming out pretty poor. There is a dual-tone LED flash to somewhat ameliorate that, though.

While there are lots of phones that deliver better photos at this price point – the Honor 10 comes to mind – this phone isn’t aimed at photography aficionados, so the decision to focus spending on other features makes sense. 

In fact, taking that into consideration, we were pleasantly surprised to see dual rear cameras on this phone.

Camera samples

No BlackBerry Pie for you

• Android 8.1 Oreo with BlackBerry overlay
• Monthly security updates
• BlackBerry security features

No surprises here: the BlackBerry Key2 LE does not yet offer the latest edition of Android. It runs 8.1 Oreo with a BlackBerry topping, which includes its well-regarded suite of security apps and features.

For instance, the BlackBerry DTEK security app scans the phone and tells you of any security vulnerabilities it finds. There's also a secure section called 'Locker' for keeping apps, photos and files locked away, requiring a password or fingerprint to access. We tried to screenshot this to show you, but it wouldn't let us, because security.

The phone also comes with Firefox Focus, a more privacy-focused version of the standard Mozilla browser that helps avoid web tracking and auto-deletes your session when you close it.

BlackBerry has committed to monthly Android security updates on the Key2 LE, so even if it doesn’t get Android 9 Pie any time soon, at least it should be relatively secure.

The rest of the interface is standard Oreo with a bit of BlackBerry style, by which we mean menus are a dull grey and widgets have been elevated to a tab on the app drawer.

The third tab, 'Shortcuts', not only gives a quick route to all kinds of actions, but also leads to the keyboard shortcuts feature. This is really cool: you can assign a function to each and every letter on the physical keyboard, both for long and short press.

If you're planning to use this as your main phone for a long time, you could potentially have it set up in a way that’s completely custom and intuitive to you.

As for typing on the keyboard, we found it pretty tricky, especially at first. BlackBerry says the Key2 LE’s keys are 10% bigger than on the BlackBerry KeyOne, but even with small hands they feel teeny-tiny.

After a few days' use, you do get used to typing on the keyboard, but it never feels faster than using an on-screen one. At one point we found ourselves wondering if the space wouldn’t have been better used for large, old-school T9 keys like the ones non-smart phones have, because we reckon we’d spend less time deleting mistakes that way.

On some BlackBerry phones, you can swipe on the keyboard to scroll up and down, but that’s been left out of this budget handset. It's a shame, because it's both fun and useful, which is something not many handset innovations manage to be.

All that said, the market for this phone is clearly people who love the BlackBerry keyboard but don't want to pay flagship prices, so they'll probably be more than happy tapping away on those tiny keys.

Performance and media

• Keyboard takes up potential screen space
• 4.5-inch screen still manages to feel immersive
• Snapdragon 636 chipset, 4GB of RAM

The BlackBerry Key2 LE is clearly not designed as an entertainment device, but all phones have to be able to multitask, and this will do you fine for streaming, reading and less demanding games.

The BlackBerry Key2 LE runs on a Snapdragon 636 chipset, a solid mid-range one with four 1.8GHz cores and four 1.6GHz ones. The phone also has 4GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB of storage, plus a microSD slot that takes up to a 256GB card that can be hot-swapped.

We benchmarked the Key2 LE on Geekbench 4, and an average of three CPU tests came out with a multi-core score of 4923. At peak performance, the standard BlackBerry Key2 averaged 5572. 

Meanwhile, the Honor 10 managed 6570, so that might be the phone to go for if you’re more interested in hardware performance and gaming chops.

The screen size of the BlackBerry Key2 LE is obviously diminished by the keyboard, so if a big screen for movies and media is important to you, this probably isn't the handset you want.

That said, while we expected the 4.5-inch display to feel small while watching Netflix and reading digital books, it didn’t. It’s still plenty immersive, and reminded us that it wasn’t so long ago that we were perfectly happy with smaller screens.

Gaming feels a bit weird on this phone at first, because there’s a big pointless keyboard taking up space on the handset. But like the useless third leg on the Nintendo 64 controller, you soon forget it’s there.

While games like Asphalt Nitro work well on the Key2 LE's hardware and look good on the screen, it's obviously not a device for hardcore gamers. Everyone else will find it plenty good enough.

As for music, this won't be winning any audio awards, but as we noted earlier in the review, the speaker can pump out fairly solid sound.

Verdict

It's tough to sum up the BlackBerry Key2 LE because it will be seen very differently by different groups of people. It's fair to say this is not a phone with mainstream appeal – as is the case with most BlackBerry phones these days.

For its target audience, which is people and businesses who want a keyboard-toting BlackBerry like the BlackBerry Key2 but without the price tag, it hits the mark. 

We'd like to have seen a little more battery stamina (perhaps in exchange for the second rear camera), but it's solid overall.

Who's this for?

Essentially, it’s for all the people who told BlackBerry they wanted a less expensive version of the Key2. 

That will likely be both business and personal customers: corporations who want to provide it to their employees, and people who want a solid work phone or personal handset with a focus on security and productivity.

Should you buy it?

If you like the BlackBerry physical keyboard and can type efficiently on it (which we never quite managed even after daily use), this might be the business phone for you.

It's not the strongest on camera and battery, but the interface is well-designed for its intended use and the security additions are valuable.

Considering its affordability, it also has a commendably classy corporate design, which we think even Patrick Bateman would have admired. Although of course he'd have gone for the more expensive one.

Looking for other options? Consider these alternatives:

BlackBerry Key2

The Key2 LE’s main competition could well be its bigger brother. The LE knocks around a third off the price, but the Key2 has dual 12MP cameras in place of the LE’s 13MP/5MP setup, 6GB of RAM instead of 4, and a Snapdragon 660 chipset instead of the 636.

Read our full BlackBerry Key2 review

Honor 10

An impressive phone in a beautiful body, the Honor 10 is the handset to beat in this price range. Its well-designed fingerprint scanner, AI-powered dual camera and slim-bezeled 5.84-inch 1080 x 2280 display all make it a strong proposition, but only if you don’t need a physical keyboard.

Read our full Honor 10 review

Huawei Mate 20 Lite

With its 6.3-inch screen and iPhone X-like design, the Mate 20 Lite has a lot of display real estate over the BlackBerry Key2 LE. The AI-enhanced camera is fun to use, but phone performance leaves a little to be desired, and again you’d have to live with an on-screen keyboard.

Read our full Huawei Mate 20 Lite review

First reviewed: November 2018

The BlackBerry Key2 isn’t the future of smartphones. Instead, it’s a throwback to physical keyboards on phones in a world dominated by the all-screen iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9.

It bucks the bezel-less display trend and on-screen, make-believe keyboards in favor of 35 real keys, offering starved ‘Crackberry’ addicts something tactical to exercise their thumbs against.

Durability is another BlackBerry hallmark that returns in the age of delicate, all-glass smartphones. This strengthened aluminum handset with a leather-like soft-touch grip on back is ready for your day, no matter what business you're in.

It’s certainly an improvement over last year’s BlackBerry KeyOne that we found likable, but gave some users troubling reliability issues. Key2 feels sturdier and survived our stress tests.

Update: BlackBerry Key2 is now available in the US and UK. It's on sale through Amazon and Best Buy in the US. We've updated our review to note pricing and carrier compatibility on both regions.

You’re also upgrading to a faster performing chipset (but nowhere near the fastest in the world) and a higher-quality dual-lens camera (though not flawless, as you'll see) on a phone that runs Android 8.1 Oreo and BlackBerry’s smart security and all-encompassing messaging software.

But it all comes back to the physical keys. They’re 20% larger than last year and there’s an all-new Speed Key to trigger 52 customizable actions from any menu. It’s smartphone productivity at its finest.

BlackBerry Key2 is a standout phone at a time when we’re seeing a lot of notch-led sameness. It does everything differently. Some of it we like. But it does weird things, too, which had us not-so-enthusiastically saying, ‘Ugh, it does everything differently’. Same words, different tone. New camera tricks, video playback, and millennial-loved apps like Instagram aren’t primed for BlackBerry and its misshapen screen with a 3:2 aspect ratio.

You’re going to love the keys on this phone if you can get used to typing on a real keyboard again. You’re going to hate this phone if you can’t adapt (or, if you’re old enough, revert back) to an old-school smartphone keyboard. 

Our advice: take your 14-day return policy (or whatever trial your country affords you) seriously on this one. It’s a solid reinvention of a BlackBerry if that’s what you’re looking for in the Android era, and completely different if you’re looking to stand out. But it’s not the future for most people.

Price and release date

BlackBerry Key2 launched on June 29, so it's now available to pre-order in the US and UK, courtesy of TCL, the Chinese smartphone company now behind the BlackBerry brand.

In the US, it costs $649 unlocked at Amazon and Best Buy, and supports GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile. We tried a Verizon SIM card and couldn’t get data, so you’re out of luck if you’re on a CDMA carrier like Verizon or Sprint. TCL may sell a CDMA version in the future, but last year, that version of the handset came at a later date. TCL won't tell us for sure, but we suppose the same is true here.

In the UK, the Key2 costs £579 and is carrier-unlocked at Unlocked Mobiles, BuyItDirect, Mobile Phones Direct, and Clove Technologies. BlackBerry also made the phone available two days early, on June 27, at Selfridges Manchester, Birmingham and Oxford Street London stores.

The business-focused BlackBerry Key2 price is closer to Wall Street than Main Street this time around. Last year, we were paying  $549 (£499, AU$729). But the increase – 16% in the UK and 18% in the US – is still cheaper than the iPhone X, Samsung Galaxy S9, and even the ‘more affordable' iPhone 8. You’re going to have to look to the iPhone 7 to find something on BlackBerry Key2’s price level.

Keyboard

The BlackBerry Key2 boasts that old-school thing that so many phone manufacturers have done away with – and we aren’t talking about the 3.5mm headphone jack, although it has that, too.

It’s the 35 chiclet-style keys on the lower-third of the Key2 that make it an easy recommendation to anyone who misses the tactile feedback of a real smartphone keyboard. We can report that the keys for one-and-only flagship phone launching with a keyboard in 2018 has been refined, too.

Key height is now 20% larger than the KeyOne, taking over the needless bumpy frets between rows. Compared to an on-screen keyboard, we were slower, but more accurate when taking to the keys and feeling out words. Our out-of-shape thumbs felt the burn, as much as our brain liked the responsiveness of the keys.

What helped make up for our initially slower typing speed and cramped thumbs are the various shortcuts. First, the 52 programmable shortcuts return, this time with a dedicated Speed Key.

The Speed Key is the first new key on a BlackBerry in over a decade, and it lets you assign and launch any shortcut with a quick press of the Speed Key + a letter. There are 26 letters, and long and short combinations double that number to 52. For us, Speed Key + a short press of the I key opened up Instagram. There’s no need to revert back to the homepage to navigate to the app we use everyday (okay, hourly).

Second, what helped us overcome our slow typing speed was Flick Typing, which  uses the row of predictive text above the keyboard with three words lining the bottom of the screen. You can tap one of the suggestions to finish off a word you’re typing, or simply flick your thumb in the direction of the best suggestion and it’ll fly onto the screen where your currently typing. It’s very intuitive.  

Third, the entire keyboard acts as a trackpad, letting you easily scroll through menus by lightly petting the keys. The best part is that this means your fingers won’t hog the display. It’s almost as if the Apple Watch scrolling digital crown concept has come to a smartphone. 

The BlackBerry team calls all of this its Intelligent Keyboard, and it really is smarter than ever before. The keyboard is why the Key2 is definitely for some people, but not most people, including us and our sore thumbs. At least not long-term in 2018.

Design and screen

The BlackBerry Key2 is a screen-and-keyboard productivity tool designed for the workforce elite, and it looks even more polished than the KeyOne. This time it comes in an all-black color, or a two-tone silver-and-black look from day one. No waiting around for the Black Edition this time around.

The stronger aluminum frame is the subtle, but important upgrade here. It was too easy to bend and pop out the KeyOne screen – we haven’t had that issue with the Key2 even after some efforted bend attempts (at the end of our review period, for obvious reasons). 

The textured soft-grip back helps keep the phone in hand. It’s less slippery than a glass phone, and, if it does drop, it’s able to take a hit much better. Even without that elegant all-glass finish popular on other devices, there continues to be an air of sophistication to the modern BlackBerry design.

The Key2 blends old and new: there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, another novelty in 2018, while it also takes a stab at a side-mounted ‘Convenience Key.’ Samsung and LG are trying to add AI with new side buttons for Bixby and Google Assistant, while BlackBerry does the right thing by making the button customizable.

You’re not going to get an upgrade to the returning 4.5-inch LCD screen that’s still beholden to an odd 3:2 aspect ratio. Sure, the 1620 x 1080 resolution looks quite crisp, but 16:9 videos have black bars at the top and bottom with no option to fill the screen. It makes the keyboard-curtailed screen feel extra small.

Worse, the 3:2 screen will rudely cut off all portrait video and photos on Instagram Stories, Snapchat, and other platforms on which people refuse to record in landscape mode. Side-by-side comparisons show you’re actually missing a sizable chunk of content from this screen.

Android 8.1 and BlackBerry apps

Key2’s software is one-part BlackBerry, one-part Android. It offers access to business-centered apps like BlackBerry Hub, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), and DTEK security, while maintaining the compatibility of Google Play Store apps and a familiar interface.

It’s a combination that works without too many app redundancies. BlackBerry Hub is an all-encompassing messaging with deep customization rules, and BBM features Time and Retract tools (Snapchat for grown ups). We’re still waiting for a desktop companion app for BBM, or Google Chat to completely take over our lives.

DTEK powers BlackBerry’s security app and constantly monitors what goes in and out of your phone. For you, everything boils down to a status level and gives you a handy security rating. You can also easily review permissions of every app to understand the information they can access, and keep track of vulnerabilities.

BlackBerry Key2 and Google's own software still give us dueling email and calendar apps, but everything else about this Android software suite compliments rather than competes. That's especially true of BlackBerry Hub for its ability to streamline all of our many messages and their notifications, making for better work-life balance.

Specs and performance

The BlackBerry Key2 is fast enough for most work tasks thanks to its Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 chipset and 6GB of RAM. There are options for 64GB and 128GB of internal storage, and you can always expand upon that (up to 256GB) thanks to the microSD card slot.

It’s a serious upgrade over the KeyOne’s RAM at 3GB (initially) and 4GB (Black Edition) options a year ago. Key2 is now better at multitasking, though its curtailed screen length isn’t ideal for it. And we still saw from performance drag from gaming – this is still not a multimedia powerhouse like a new iPhone or Samsung handset.

We found similar results from stress-testing the phone with the GeekBench app and judging its multi-core scores. At its peak, we were averaging 5,572. However, running the chipset a few times in a row took us down to a score of 4,903 and two more times down to 2,779. That’s where we saw the drag in performance.

It’s not enough for the average BlackBerry user tapping away on the chiclet-style keys to take notice. But you should also be fully aware that the performance here won’t blow you away or get any better two or three years from now if you plan to hang onto the Key2 for a while.

Camera

You can’t teach an old BlackBerry new tricks. At least that’s what we thought when we tried out the Key 2’s dual-lens rear camera’s portrait mode, the background blurring effect that’s popular in almost every new smartphone. It’s the worst implementation of it we’ve seen yet.

Let’s start with something good. The BlackBerry Key2’s 12MP camera takes fine photos in daylight and its 2x optical zoom is handy. Everything is better than the KeyOne, and the 8MP front-facing camera does the same.

It’s not going to land on our best camera phones list, where the Samsung Galaxy S9, iPhone X and Google Pixel 2 reside. But it’s more than acceptable for everyday snapshots in addition to video conferencing.

The problem here is when it tries to use software to add bokeh (the background blur effect). The blur was all over the place, at times like the phone was trying to censor part of my (or my subject’s) face. Long hair strands are always an issue, even for the best smartphone blurring effects. But even short hairstyles confused this camera's portrait mode. For a starring attraction, portrait mode is disappointing.

It does record 4K video and have a fun slow-motion video mode. These work well enough. Our biggest issue is that the Key2 camera app is simple, yet somehow unintuitive. We’re spoiled by Samsung (the best) and LG (second best) when it comes to properly laying out modes and camera controls.

You’re going to be fine using the BlackBerry Key2 camera in other modes. But if you buy this phone thinking it has a keyboard and all of the latest photo effects, you’re going to be sorely mistaken (and end up with a photo album full of janky pictures).

Battery life

The BlackBerry Key2 has a 3,500mAh battery, meaning it skims 5mah off the top of the KeyOne’s 3,505mAh battery capacity. Trust us, you’ll hardly ever notice.

It has all-day battery life, extending anywhere from 25 hours to 35 hours in our daily tests. It’s a solid performer for smartphone-using workaholics like us. We also got the same results as last year's KeyOne in our lab tests when running a 90-minute HD video at full brightness. It went from 100% to 89%, losing a respectable 11%, and mirroring the KeyOne’s results.

It’s pulling off solid battery life numbers because of its underpowered Snapdragon 660 chipset and the fact that it burns fewer pixels than other smartphones, ones with all-screen Quad HD displays. So.... there’s a positive little trade-off to cutting off everyone’s Instagram photos.

We also found that it’s fast to charge, filling up to 0% from a dead battery after less than two hours. Boost Mode is the key here. It suspends performance in order to gain charging speed. It’s like turning on airplane mode without actually cutting you off from the world.

There’s no always-on screen display here, but BlackBerry’s perimeter-lining charging percentage indicator returns, lining the sides of the screen with a green bar as the battery replenishment progresses. It’s a small but subtle gimmick we can get behind.

BlackBerry's comeback – by way of TCL Communications – offers something that hasn’t been available before last year. It’s the only way to type on a physical smartphone keyboard without having to carry around a beat-up old pre-Android BlackBerry. We’ve seen people do this in 2018 – as recently as this week.

The Key2 continues BlackBerry's fascinating comeback story with a sequel that gives us 20% larger keys, a sturdier aluminum design, a faster chipset, and the shortcut-focused Speed Key. 

It’s not enough of an upgrade to tempt most KeyOne users into a costly one-year upgrade, as it’s at least 16% more expensive this time around. And it won’t lure most younger users from their on-screen keyboard muscle memory. The wonky screen aspect ratio and flawed portrait mode doesn’t help BlackBerry's case with millennials.

But anyone who has ever said ‘I miss my old BlackBerry’ should give the BlackBerry Key2 a shot. It’s not where smartphones are going, but an example of how standing out from the oversaturated all-screen smartphone crowd can gain a following – even if it’s only a cult hit.

Who’s it for?

Key2 is best in the hands of anyone that sees physical smartphone keyboards as a solution to their autocorrect typing woes. But while we said that last year, it’s not enough of an upgrade for people who already bought into the Key2 (unless you’re a business tycoon with untold cash). It’s mostly for people who want to cling onto the old-school physical keyboard, or want something completely different from the iPhone and other Android phones currently out there.

Should I buy it?

Yes, if you’ve missed out on the KeyOne and yearn to feel a tactile smartphone keyboard under your thumbs again, this is your best (and only) new solution in 2018. Know that it is more expensive than the KeyOne at launch last year, and the KeyOne is now easier to pick up on sale. But it's enough of a step up, mostly thanks to the 20% larger keys, to spend the extra money if you have it.

Competition

iPhone 8

Apple's iPhone 8 is the closest new iPhone to the Key2 in price and while Blackberry has been known for its enterprise security, iOS 11 (soon to be iOS 12) has plenty of text and video messaging features with end-to-end encryption built-in. It also offers ease-of-use for people coming off of their 'Crackberry' addiction. What may have them retreating back to something like the Key2, however, is autocorrect, which can be frustrating (or, at times, hilarious). Physical keyboards, when you get used to them, are often more accurate, though slower, when it comes to typing.

Samsung Galaxy S9

Samsung is the best Android alternative for a BlackBerry user on the fence when it comes to sticking with BB hardware or jumping ship to another Android handset. What we like about the Galaxy S9 is that its all-screen design seems like the future of smartphones, with a curved, always-on display. It feels great to hold in one hand (or two if you opt for the Galaxy S9 Plus). Just be prepared to pay more for the Galaxy S9 and swap out the Samsung keyboard for Google's Gboard.

We’ve been writing these stories for years, but they never change: phone owners wanting new software and waiting feverishly to hear when they’ll get it.

Well, as the headline suggests, the BlackBerry KeyOne is the latest phone to be upgraded to the newest version of Google OS - Android 8 Oreo, if you’re confused - thanks to an update from a Canadian network.

The update has been a long time coming - the KeyOne was launched in April 2017, on Android Nougat 7.1 - and with the imminent release of the BlackBerry Key2 we’d have expected this update to appear sooner rather than later (as the newer phone will launch with Android 8.1 out of the box).

The update was listed on Canadian carrier Rogers’ forums in the list of updates coming along for phones, stating that the KeyOne will be getting Android 8.0 (curiously not 8.1) and Wi-Fi calling… although the latter feature is just for Rogers’ customers.

Launch windows

Will the BlackBerry KeyOne Oreo update be launching around the world soon? It’s quite likely, given the Key2 is quite similar in design and function to the KeyOne so there must be some efficiencies in porting the platform over.

What it does do is highlight that, even after a decade of being on smartphones, Google’s OS upgrade path is still too slow - Android 8 was first seen on a smartphone in October 2017 (admittedly Google-created Pixel 2) and eight months on we’re still waiting for it to appear on many phones.

Still, if you’re a keyboard phone fan and made the jump to the BlackBerry KeyOne, you’ll very likely be enjoying the cheeky boost of Android Oreo soon.

• Which are the best smartphones around? 

Update: BlackBerry KeyOne is now a year old and the follow-up, BlackBerry Key2, is here. But if you're still interested in the KeyOne, it's cheaper and there's a better 'Black Edition' with a tweaked design, more RAM and additonal internal storage.

Move over, Samsung Galaxy S8. The BlackBerry KeyOne is the latest smartphone comeback story of 2017, even if the company behind it is really just China’s TCL Communications.

It’s touted as the most secure Android phone, pre-loaded with smart, enterprise-level mobile software and, at last, delivers an old-school physical keyboard within a modern enough stainless steel and faux-leather design.

For a few pennies more, an all-black model is also available for the discerning executive (dubbed 'Black Edition'), with a little more RAM and internal storage to boot.

This is the reinvented BlackBerry for everyone wholly determined to reclaim a tactile keyboard and BlackBerry Messenger. It works great for typing once you get used to the keys again. We were actually more accurate at typing with it, though we never faster versus using an on-screen keyboard.

‘CrackBerry’ addicts have something to look forward to here. But it’s a workaholic. BlackBerry KeyOne is all business in the front and back, less of a multimedia party anywhere in between.

The screen is bright and colorful, but while its 3:2 aspect ratio is great for viewing emails, it leaves you with unsightly black bars on all 16:9 video. It makes movies look really small. The audio comes out through a single bottom-firing speaker, too. It’s like this phone clocks out at 5pm sharp when it comes to the fun stuff.

It borrows camera specs from other top-tier top phones, with a 12MP sensor right out of the Google Pixel. Photos are good, though the shared specs only go so far: it doesn't have the same backend camera image stabilization software and its front-end camera app is a mess.

BlackBerry KeyOne is clearly an Android phone that has productivity users in mind. It works as an entertainment device, too, but it’s not the best at it. Sure, it doesn’t have the fastest chipset and a fancy new display, yet it’s one of the best phones at helping you manage day-to-day tasks and will last you the entire day with battery life that lasts more than 24 hours.

What it lacks in top-of-the-line internal chip specs it tries to make up for with unique features like sophisticated software and its physical keyboard. It’s a trade-off that makes it slightly cheaper.

Does this new BlackBerry phone have enough of an enterprise advantage to lure you back from your on-screen, makebelieve keyboard? Let’s get down to business and put it to the test.

• £499 (Silver - 3GB RAM, 32GB) or £549 (Black - 4GB RAM, 64GB)
• $549 (Silver - 3GB RAM, 32GB), no date for Black Edition

The BlackBerry KeyOne price is somewhere in between Wall Street and Main Street, costing $549 (£499, AU$729). It’s cheaper than an iPhone 7 or the Samsung Galaxy S8.

In the US, there are two versions: an unlocked edition that’s GSM and CDMA capable across the networks, and a summer-bound CDMA model for Sprint.

In the UK, it was launched early at London's prestigious Selfridges and eventually came to Carphone Warehouse on May 5. More UK retailers and carriers have come on board, including John Lewis and Currys. 

For those looking for even more power, the new ‘Black’ Edition is available in certain markets, packing a smart new all-black paint job plus more RAM and double the storage compared to the base model. It's currently retailing for £549 in the UK.

• BlackBerry's signature keys return, spurning the new all-screen trend
• Makes for a more precise, but slow typing experience
• Neat tricks: 52 key shortcuts, trackpad-like movement and suggested word-flicking gestures

The Blackberry KeyOne is all about its physical keyboard in a world dominated by touchscreen iPhones and Androids. It’s the exact opposite of the Galaxy S8 and LG G6 all-screen trend.

BlackBerry’s signature keyboard is a welcomed change if you miss the tactile feedback of a real smartphone keyboard. There are 35-chiclet-style keys, and each one it properly backlit with no need for an on-screen keyboard to hog your display.

It does take several hours of typing to re-learn how use it. At first, it’s problematic. B shares a key with ! and caused us to say “How’s your day goingB” with a quick apologize. “Sorry, mom.”

We found ourselves making fewer typing mistakes going back to a BlackBerry, but overall slower in our characters-per-minute output. We.e were never faster versus typing on an on-screen keyboard, just more accurate and less autocorrect dependent.

There are several twists to make life easier. It has 52 customizable shortcuts, so every long and short press gets you somewhere faster. Hold down on the ‘I’ key while on the home screen and you instantly get to Instagram.

Blackberry KeyOne has three-word suggestions across the bottom of the touchscreen as part of its contextual next word prediction engine. It’s smart, but doesn't have punctuation predictions or, like iOS 10, emoji predictions. That’s too fun for a BlackBerry.

You can, however, select a suggested word without ever lifting your thumbs from the keyboard. Just slide up on the keys and it’ll almost flick the word right onto the screen. It works most of the time and feels faster than tapping one of the on-screen choices.

The entire keyboard also acts as a trackpad, so you can scroll through menus and web pages as you lightly pet the keys. You, again, don’t need to put your fingers on the screen.

Compared to the glory days of full mobile keyboards, it can feel a little cramped, however this is the best hardware keyboard to grace Android in years.

• Two-tone sophisticated look
• Biometric fingerprint scanner is hidden inside the space bar
• Ironically named connivence key is more annoying than it is helpful
• Strangely, no dual-SIM option for international business travelers

The BlackBerry KeyOne has an air of sophistication, even as it blends the old and the new technology. 

It looks like a productivity tool carried by the workforce elite, with the Black Edition in particular looking like the love-child of a Thinkpad and a Rolls Royce.

Its screen-and-keyboard combo is outlined in a silver anodized aluminum frame and backed by a black, soft grip textured rear cover. This stylish, two-toned look is has real character, while the darker Black Edition is still more subtle in its premium look.

No, the rubberized back isn’t really leather, but it gives that impression. The aluminum frame is scratch-resistant and stood up to our minor testing abuse. Not everyone has had such luck, with a few people reporting that the screen pops out rather easily with a little bend.

The good news is that this flaw has been addressed as an issue in the manufacturing process by TCL, and a fix was implemented to ensure new handsets rolling off the production line wouldn't suffer the same fate.

The most clever thing about this new BlackBerry design is that it hides the fingerprint sensor inside the small space bar at the bottom of the phone. It’s an odd shape for a biometric scanner.

The good news is that the blended fingerprint sensor works really well here with a near 0% fail rate (assuming your fingers aren't wet). It’s also easy to access on the front and it can wake the phone from a screen-off state.

There's also a custom 'convenience' button we mapped to the camera app, but found it more annoying than helpful due to its easy-to-mispress location. “Oh, the camera is open... again.” The inability of this button to also wake the device from sleep further limits its usefulness day-to-day.

During calls, it functions as a mute button, which we found useful. It’s easy to remember this button exists during active calls, not when you’re first picking up your smartphone from a table. “Again, with the camera opening?!”

For fingers trained to the more common right-side volume rocker then power button layout, it takes a lot of getting used to.

There's no upside to the mono speaker on the bottom frame. It helps no one – on-the-go entertainment seekers and business speakerphone devotees alike.

We’re also surprised the BlackBerry KeyOne doesn’t have a dual nano SIM tray when many unlocked phones out of China now have a second SIM / microSD card tray. This just has the latter, to the chagrin of jet-setting international business travelers.

While the KeyOne Black Edition may be enough to sway finicky executives in the looks department, it does nothing to solve the base design issues of the original, rather the higher price compounds them.

BlackBerry KeyOne Black Edition hands on gallery

The device is razor focused on the tasks of typing and reading text, which doesn't often lend it well to the realities of owning a top-tier smartphone in 2017. 

I would have been nice to see the stippled soft touch plastic rear make way for a sheet of matte aluminium, given the higher price point and more premium focus.

• 4.5-inch Full HD screen feels like a 5.5-inch screen due to bigger width and your thumbs staying put on the keyboard
• The bright display looks great, but its 3:2 aspect ratio forces 16:9 video to feel small by placing black bars at the top and bottom
• This is not a multimedia showstopper, it's a workhorse

The BlackBerry KeyOne display shares the front face of the phone with the keyboard, so it can’t compare to an trendy new all-screen Android phone. You just can't have everything in life.

Its 4.5-inch Full HD screen is misshapen, with one third of the phone real estate taken up by non-screen parts: keyboard, capacitive buttons and front camera.

It feels like a 5.5-inch display thanks to its familiar 3-inch width, and we wouldn’t want it much longer. Anything taller would make this already 180g phone feel top-heavy when holding the very bottom of the keyboard.

We end up with a screen that’s bright, colorful and gives you more usable space thanks to the the keyboard and trackpad-like scrolling. Sadly, not every app adjusts to a 1,620 x 1,080 resolution.

At this price, the inclusion of an LCD rather than a more punchy and colorful AMOLED screen feels a little like unnecessarily cost cutting, especially for the more premium Black Edition.

You’re going to run into problems with the 3:2 aspect ratio on a daily basis. All 16:9 video feels extra small with top and bottom black bars. Snapchats and Instagram Stories are also cut off, but for the type of user the KeyOne is targeting it's unlikely to matter too much,

The good news most productivity apps and interactive games adapt to the size. It’s just movies and fixed-length photo apps that give the BlackBerry KeyOne trouble.

You’ll find split-screen multitasking thanks to Android 7.1 Nougat, but it’s a bit cramped. There are a few sacrifices if you want a keyboard on a smartphone in the modern day.

• Runs Android 7.1.1 with helpful BlackBerry software and security
• Great, all-encompassing BlackBerry Hub combines almost all of your message services
• Gridview of recent apps makes switching apps easier even if the smaller screen makes true multitasking cramped

The KeyOne runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat with a BlackBerry twist. You have access to all of the Google Play Store apps, plus a few enterprise-focused programs and interface tweaks.

BlackBerry Hub is the highlight of the software. It combines your notifications, messages calls, and events into one streamlined location. You can easily sift through almost every account in your hectic work life: BlackBerry Messenger, texts, email, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Slack, WhatsApp and Twitter.

BlackBerry Hub works because of deep customization. You customize alert rules to effortlessly toggle which accounts show up instead of doing it one-by-one. In our custom 'Vacation Mode,’ we turned off Twitter, Slack and work email alerts, but kept texts and Facebook Messenger enabled.  We reserved it in our ‘Daily Work Day’ recipe for a productive day – all done without unticking individual account boxes each time.

BlackBerry Messenger is viable messaging app, but hardly the best. We liked the Time and Retract feature (Snapchat for grown ups), but were less impressed by its sponsored ads and lack of a desktop companion app. This is an enterprise phone, right?

Swiping in from the right brings up a productivity tab, where unread emails, upcoming events, a to do list and more are displayed. This is active by default on every screen, but can be disabled if you wish.

DTEK is the security app that keeps your phone safe. It constantly monitors your device’s security status level and gives you a rating. You can review permissions of every app to understand the information they can access, and keep track of vulnerabilities. DTEK is the one BlackBerry app you never want to really have to use.

BlackBerry KeyOne's has a stock Android vibe, but we found the tweaked recent menu helpful. It opens up your most recent apps in an assorted gridview that's easier to browse through than with the fanned-out look of every other phone.

It tries to pull off a 3D touch shortcuts interface within its homescreen apps, but it’s not fleshed out. Swiping up on apps sometimes get you a mini window of the app’s most important information (helpful), but too many apps don’t support this yet; it’s just option to add widgets to the homescreen (not helpful).

The BlackBerry KeyOne can feel a little ‘untidy’ at times, with dual email apps, dual calendar apps and more all cluttering up the app drawer.

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core is a mid-range chipset
• It's fast enough for multitasking, but isn't mean for heavy gaming
• 32GB of internal storage and single-SIM are anti-business
• KeyOne Black Edition bumps storage to 64GB and RAM to 4GB

The BlackBerry KeyOne is priced less than a Samsung or LG flagship phone for good reason: it doesn’t have flagship level specs and performance.

Its Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core chipset is fast enough for most day-to-day work tasks, and its 64-bit capabilities ensure multitasking is fairly smooth.

Occasional slowdown happened when we were playing games; its 3GB of RAM and Adreno 506 graphics chip put the KeyOne a step behind other phones. Don’t expect the smoothest frame rates or performance.

It also starts with 32GB of internal storage, not 64GB, and while it has a microSD card slot, it doesn’t turn into a second nano SIM slot for dual-SIM use.

Its occasional slowdown and single-SIM support shouldn’t turn you off if you love the keyboard, but it is an odd pairing: mid-range specs with high-end phone design and software features.

The story does change a little with the BlackBerry KeyOne Black Edition. With 64GB of internal storage, there is a lot more room to spread out, most people will find it to be enough. 

With an extra 1GB of RAM there is a small, but palpable difference in performance, with things running a little more smoothly. 

This doesn’t make the KeyOne a gaming powerhouse, but it certainly makes checking email a little quicker.

• 12MP camera does a better than expected job, even if it's not to Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8 standards
• 8MP front-facing camera is good, but suffers greatly in low light conditions
• BlackBerry's cumbersome camera app is the biggest issue here

BlackBerry KeyOne has a main 12MP camera that captures large 1.55um and we found it to do a superb job in daylight and a decent job in low light, too. A lot of this is thanks to multi-frame low light capabilities that try to suss out the best photo from multiple shots.

It has Phase Detect Auto Focus for faster focusing, and electronic image stabilization (EIS) for steady photos and video for reducing camera shake. We found EIS video to be smooth, but not as gimbal-steady as the optical image stabilization (OIS) of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus.

You’re also going to have a better chance at a good photo in low light with the Google Pixel due to both backend and front-end software. It shares the Sony IMX378 camera sensor, but this only does so much for the BlackBerry KeyOne.

Turning on HDR helps, but we found photos to generally be a little darker than we would have liked without editing them first to increase exposure.

BlackBerry's camera app is unfixable nuisance. It has very few modes (Photo, Pano, Video and Slow-Mo) and they’re all hidden in a mode menu. That means you have to dig into a menu to switch between photos and videos instead of having available on the screen at all times. It’s a cumbersome, unintuitive mess.

The KeyOne can shoot 4K video at 30 frames per second and 1080p at 60fps. Oddly, switching between all of its various video resolutions and frame rates is right at the top of the camera app. That’s at least easy to access.

The front-facing camera takes 8MP shots with similar results as the main rear camera. Great in daylight, but its f/2.2 lens and 1.125um pixel size can’t stand up to low light. 

Moving subjects should still be advised to stay absolutely motionless in less than stellar lighting conditions . "Next person to even say ‘Cheese’ is out of the group selfie."

• 3,505mAh battery last between 26 and 36 hours in our testing
• Superb battery-saving background tricks whenever the phone is idle
• Loses only 2% of battery life overnight and recharges very quickly

BlackBerry KeyOne is a smartphone built for today’s workaholics right down to the battery life. It lasted us almost a day and a half in our battery life tests.

Its 3,505mAh battery capacity is rated for 26 hours, but we found lasted longer by draining only 2% when we left it idle at night (testing time: exactly eight hours). So 26 hours turned out to be closer to 36 hours for us. There's no need to bring a power pack on the go when starting a day of constant emailing.

Say what you will about its slower Snapdragon 625 chipset; it's at least battery efficient. Watching an HD video for 90 minutes at full brightness only took the battery down to 89%, losing a very respectable 11%. 

Here’s something else to like: It can juice back up to 50% in just 36 minutes and takes 1 hour and 52 minutes total to reach 100%. Helping things out is  ‘Boost Mode,’  which suspends some performance for faster charging gains. 

BlackBerry KeyOne doesn’t have an always-on screen for anything else, it always lets you know the charging percentage and slowly growing a red and then green bar along the side of the screen whenever it’s plugged in.

Enterprise phone users

BlackBerry KeyOne is the smartphone for anyone who has ever said ‘I miss my old BlackBerry.’ It reinvents the tactical QWERTY keyboard phone for the modern Android era. It's for everyone who has felt exiled to on-screen keyboards over last half decade.

Businesses buying in bulk

Buying in bulk for employees? You'll appreciate the front-and-center DTEK security app, solid battery life and BlackBerry Hub. There’s no excuse for workers to miss your messages now. It's also cheaper than other top phones.

Entertainment seekers

This is not fit for multimedia due to its misshapen 3:2 screen that puts black bars on the top and bottom of 16:9 video and single speaker. This is far from an all-screen phone. It's all for work and not for play.

Selfie takers

You won't get the best selfies from the front-facing camera, even though the rear camera is pretty good. Lowlight causes too much blurring and switching between the two camera in the main app is a confusing mess.

BlackBerry’s new BlackBerry Key2 is the successor to last year’s KeyOne. Yes, BlackBerry is still making phones, but these days they’re running on Android and pulling in a handful of BlackBerry’s security features.

A quick look at both phones, and it’s clear they’re BlackBerry handsets. Full QWERTY keyboards leave little room for doubt. But, as BlackBerry aims to please faithful users who want a secure smartphone with a physical keyboard, its ability to compete with the likes of the Galaxy S9 or iPhone 8 is diminished. The result: the best phone to compare the new BlackBerry Key2 to is last year’s BlackBerry KeyOne.

Here we’ll take a look at what’s changed in the design, hardware, software, and more between the two smartphones.

Design

The BlackBerry KeyOne combines an aluminum frame with a leather-like soft grip on the back and a unique front housing a typical smartphone screen above a physical QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard has glossy keys that are individually backlit, and a fingerprint scanner resides in the Space key. 

The right side of the phone is home to the volume and power buttons, while the left side has an awkwardly placed ‘Convenience’ button that serves as a shortcut for launching apps. There are two speaker grilles at the bottom, though only one is an actual speaker, and they’re on either side of a USB 3.1 Type-C port. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the phone, as well as one camera on the front and another in the top corner on the back. 

The phone measures 149.3 x 72.5 x 9.4mm and weighs in at 180g. BlackBerry doesn’t specify whether the screen is made of Gorilla Glass or not, but does describe it as being resistant to impact and scratching. No ingress protection rating is mentioned, so the BlackBerry KeyOne should stay away from water.

Not much changes with the move the BlackBerry Key2, at least at first glance. It still has an aluminum frame, with a touchscreen and keyboard on front and a plastic rear. Measuring in at 151.4 x 71.8 x 8.5mm and 168g, it’s a little learner than the KeyOne. And, the rear has a dual-sensor camera this time.

BlackBerry has refined the design a bit, with a sleeker, more modern look, even if it still has bezels and no notch. The BlackBerry Key2 keyboard uses a matte plastic with flatter keycaps, and each key is still backlit. The fingerprint scanner is also still in the space key. The Convenience key has handily moved to the right side of the phone with the power and volume buttons. 

BlackBerry has also added a new key to the Key2: the Speed Key, which allows users to create two-key shortcuts to launch apps even while other apps are in the foreground (a key difference from the KeyOne’s keyboard shortcuts).

The Key2 still has a Type-C port, but it’s oddly only USB 3.0. The 3.5mm headphone jack is still included, as are the two speaker grilles (though still unclear if they’re stereo this time). Once again, there’s no ingress protection rating. And, though BlackBerry says the Key2 uses Gorilla Glass, the version of Gorilla Glass is unspecified.

All in all, the BlackBerry Key2 makes minor improvements over its predecessors design, with no substantial leaps ahead.

Display

Because of the physical keyboard, both the BlackBerry KeyOne and Key2 buck the all-screen  display trend. And, there’s really no difference between the two here. Both offer a 4.5-inch IPS LCD touchscreen display with a resolution of 1,620 x 1,080. That makes for a 3:2 aspect ratio, which can be somewhat awkward for media viewing. 

Though the resolution isn’t high, imagery will still fairly sharp at this screen size. The pixel density on each is 433ppi.

Neither phone is going to win any awards for their displays, but this is a business phone, anyway. 

OS and power

The BlackBerry KeyOne run Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box (an Oreo upgrade is expected) on a Snapdragon 625 chipset with an octa-core processor clocked at 2.0GHz. It comes in a 3GB RAM/32GB ROM and a 4GB RAM/64GB ROM flavor, but can expand its storage with microSD cards up to 256GB in size.

Powering the phone is a 3,505mAh battery that gave it a nice day-and-a-half battery life in our testing. That battery can charge up to 50% in 36 minutes as well. The KeyOne supports Bluetooth 4.2 LE and EDR, as well as NFC connections. For Wi-Fi, it can connect to 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks.

The BlackBerry Key2 mostly upgrades all of these aspects. It steps up the OS to Android 8.1 Oreo with Android P on its way. The chipset is bumped up to a Snapdragon 660, and it will come with 6GB of RAM and either 64GB or 128GB of storage. Once again, that storage is expandable by microSD up to 256GB. 

The Key2 comes with a marginally smaller 3,500mAh battery featuring Quick Charge 3.0. It still has NFC and 2.4/5GHz Wi-Fi support, but steps up to Bluetooth 5.0 LE.

Essentially, the BlackBerry Key2 should prove a more capable performer with improved software and hardware.

Camera

The camera is where some of the most dramatic differences appear. BlackBerry’s KeyOne has a 12MP sensor on the back which features large 1.55 micrometer pixels and f/2.0 aperture for a little extra performance in lower light conditions. It can record 4K video at 30fps and has electronic image stabilization (EIS) that’s decent but not up to par with other flagships optical image stabilization (OIS). 

The KeyOne’s front camera is an 8MP shooter with an 84-degree field of view. And, it can shoot 1080p video at 30fps. It also has image and video stabilization, but BlackBerry doesn’t specify what kind.

The Key2 should make some modest improvements in the camera department. It has a dual-12MP setup on the rear. One camera has an f/1.8 aperture with 1.28 micrometer pixels for good low-light performance (though we’ll have to see how well it holds up in the real world). The second camera has an f/2.6 aperture and 1.0 micrometer pixels, but it offers optical zoom. It can record 4K video at 30fps

The front camera doesn’t seem to have changed much, with an 8MP sensor that can shoot 1080p video at 30fps. BlackBerry hasn’t mentioned anything about image stabilization systems for the Key2 though, which does raise some concern.

Our hunch is that the BlackBerry Key2 cameras will prove to be a step up, but at this point, it’s hard to be sure. 

Price

The BlackBerry KeyOne launched at $549 (£499, AU$729), which was a price that made sense for a mid-tier niche it was carving out. Given its age, that full price feels a bit high, and plenty of discounts should be available.

The Key2, though not quite spec’d like a Samsung or Apple flagship phone, is priced like a high-end handset. At $649 (£579, around AU$1015), it’s a head above the KeyOne’s price. Of course, with plenty of other flagships raising their base price above $700, the Key2 isn’t outrageously priced. 

Neither phone is cheap, but the KeyOne is going to have a much more palatable price for anyone shopping on a budget.

Takeaway

The BlackBerry Key2 looks like a step forward for the company, improving on many aspects of the KeyOne. The design is refined, the internals improved, and it still has a physical keyboard. But, both phones still seat themselves pretty well in the upper end of the mid-tier smartphone category.

And, despite the clear upgrades to the Key2, a lot of question marks about the phone have been left unanswered. Is the dual-sensor camera really going to perform better? Is there any form of EIS or OIS? If the KeyOne hasn’t gotten Android Oreo by now, how long will customers have to wait for the Key2 to get Android P? Are early Key2 models going to have screens that pop out like the early KeyOne models did? What version of Gorilla Glass is used?

Until BlackBerry answers these questions, it’s hard to be sure that the Key2 is the best BlackBerry has to offer. And, if it’s better than the KeyOne in most ways, there’s a good case to be made for fans buying the older smartphone instead.

BlackBerry Mobile is back with a new phone, and the evolution to the KeyOne is called... the Key2, and it's dubbed the 're-imagination of an icon'.

Confusing jump to numbers aside, the new handset combines a number of key upgrades that the brand says its previous customers were looking for.

• Check out our in-depth hands on: BlackBerry Key2 review

The main changes are to the design: the keyboard is now matte finished (and 20% larger), making it easier to type on, and the phone has a new, more robust metallic rim. The convenience key has moved to near the volume and power button too, to keep things more neatly together.

The camera on the back has been boosted to a 12MP dual-sensor effort, which allows for bokeh effects for snaps you're taking.

The big change, according to TCL Communication (the licensor of the BB brand), is the Speed Key, a button that functions in the same was Shift or Alt to allow you to open apps speedily. This means Speed+S will open Spotify, Speed+T Twitter and so on... and it's customizable to each user.

Still secure

The software, Android 8.1, is still focused on security, with the Privacy Strip, DTEK app looking for nefarious elements within the phone, a security layer injected into the hardware and the addition of the less-trackable Firefox Focus browser.

The spec list is pretty decent for a phone of this caliber: there's 6GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB of internal storage (with a microSD card slot too) alongside a Snapdragon 660 CPU.

The latter spec is probably the least impressive of the set, but at least it's a powerful mid-range effort from Qualcomm and BlackBerry clearly doesn't anticipate people editing heavy video, taking loads of snaps or entering the virtual world with this phone.

The 4.5-inch 162- x 1080 display is sharp enough (although an odd aspect ratio to many) and there's a headphone jack too.

The BlackBerry Key2 will start at £579 GBP / $649 USD (around AU$1015), and begins shipping globally later in June.

• No keyboard, but the BlackBerry Motion has immense battery life

The BlackBerry Key2 is being announced today in New York and we’ll bring you all the news as it happens.

But if you want to see the event and can’t be there in person you can still tune into the livestream when it all kicks off at 10am EDT / 7am PDT / 3PM BST / 12am (June 8) AEST.

BlackBerry Mobile will be streaming the whole announcement event on YouTube, and you can find that video below in this article – though if you’re reading this earlier in the day it won’t be live yet, so come back later.

No surprises

All that said, we’re not expecting many surprises, as the BlackBerry Key2 has been heavily leaked, so we have a good idea of what it’s likely to look like and of all the specs.

If leaks are to be believed it has a physical keyboard, a 4.5-inch 1080 x 2160 screen, a dual-lens 12MP camera, a Snapdragon 660 chipset, 6GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB of storage and a 3,500mAh battery. We’ve even heard prices rumored, with the latest leaks suggesting the BlackBerry Key2 could cost $649 / £579 (around AU$1,015).

We’ll soon know how true all that is, but if the leaks are accurate it’s shaping up to be a very solid upper mid-ranger – albeit one aimed squarely at those who need more than a touchscreen for their typing.

• See what we thought of the BlackBerry KeyOne

The BlackBerry Key2 is officially arriving tomorrow, June 7, but there’s no real need to wait until then to learn all about it, as a complete specs list has just leaked.

Of course, nothing on this list can be taken as confirmed, but it comes from Evan Blass, who has a very good track record with leaks, so there’s a good chance it’s accurate – and it points to a phone that’s significantly better than the BlackBerry KeyOne.

For one thing, the BlackBerry Key2 apparently has a dual-lens rear camera, comprising a 12MP f/1.8 lens and a 12MP f/2.6 one. That’s in place of just a single-lens camera on the KeyOne.

The cameras here can also apparently shoot 4K footage at 30 frames per second and have a dual-LED flash, while there’s an 8MP camera listed for the front.

Upgrades everywhere

Other spec highlights include a 4.5-inch 1080 x 1620 display with a pixel density of 434 pixels per inch, a physical backlit QWERTY keyboard with an integrated fingerprint scanner, a hefty 6GB of RAM (up from a maximum of 4GB on the KeyOne) and an octa-core Snapdragon 660 chipset (replacing the Snapdragon 625 in its predecessor).

The BlackBerry Key2 also apparently has a 3,500mAh battery, 64GB or 128GB of storage, a microSD card slot, a 3.5mm headphone port, fast charging, and runs Android 8.1 Oreo.

The dimensions meanwhile are said to be 151.4 x 71.8 x 8.5mm, making it slimmer than, but otherwise a similar size to, the 149.1 x 72.4 x 9.4mm BlackBerry KeyOne.

We’ve seen plenty of leaked pictures of the BlackBerry Key2 as well, so at this point there doesn’t seem to be much we don’t know.

In fact, we even know the likely price, as in a separate tweet Blass has claimed that it will cost $649 / £579 (around AU$1,015). That's an increase over the $549 / £499 / AU$729 starting price of the KeyOne, but then the specs are also seemingly a lot better, so it's believable.

• Don't need a keyboard? Check out the BlackBerry Motion

Via Phone Arena

Though its official reveal has been slated for June 7, 2018, images of the upcoming BlackBerry Key2 flagship handset have surfaced just days in advance thanks to noted leaker, Evan Blass. 

Aesthetically, the BlackBerry Key2 seen in the images below is similar to its well-received predecessor, the KeyOne, albeit with a few notable differences that bring an added level of sophistication to the phone's overall design.

For one, the KeyOne's silver and black two-tone effect is gone in favor of a more unified all-black front and back. You'll also notice that the grippy, rubberized texture on the phone's rear now extends all the way to the top of the handset. 

Other refinements include a slimmer bezel above the display, as well as a sleeker physical keyboard. As was previously revealed, we can also see Key2 sporting a dual camera setup on its rear and a mysterious button at the bottom right of the keyboard. 

At present, little has been confirmed regarding the BlackBerry Key2's technical prowess, however, it's expected that the device will pack 6GB of RAM and an octa-core Snapdragon 660 chipset.

We'll know for sure when the BlackBerry Key2 is officially announced later in the week. 

• BlackBerry Mobile: 'we understand we are not for everyone' but 'we're here to stay'

The BlackBerry Key2 is landing on June 7, yet there’s still a whole lot that we don’t know about it. In fact, although we’ve seen a few images seemingly showing the BlackBerry Key2, most of the core specs had remained a mystery until now.

But thanks to a pair of Geekbench listings, we now know that an unannounced BlackBerry phone is seemingly coming with up to 6GB of RAM. That’s a flagship figure, though one of the benchmarks lists a still-respectable 4GB, so it’s possible that the BlackBerry Key2 will launch in two variants.

The phone in both listings is also shown as running Android 8.1 and having an octa-core Snapdragon 660 chipset, which is a mid-range chip, but a modern one and an upgrade on the Snapdragon 625 in the BlackBerry KeyOne.

It’s worth noting that the BlackBerry Key2 isn’t mentioned by name in these listings, but as that phone is only a few weeks away it’s the obvious candidate.

FCC-approved

And in other BlackBerry Key2 news, the phone has just been approved by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in the US.

The FCC listing doesn’t reveal anything new, but it’s a process we’d expect any phone that’s imminently landing to go through.

Previous BlackBerry Key2 leaks have revealed a phone with a physical keyboard, a dual-lens camera and a 3.5mm headphone port. From what we’ve seen and heard then it’s shaping up to be a modest upgrade on the KeyOne, but we’ll know for sure soon.

• Don't need a keyboard? Then check out the BlackBerry Motion

Via GSMArena and CNET

We've heard rumors and speculation about a new BlackBerry-branded phone called the Key2 and now it's (just about) official – BlackBerry Mobile (now owned by TCL) has sent out invitations to a special launch event in New York on June 7, and mentions the Key2 by name.

The phone will be the follow-up to last year's BlackBerry KeyOne, which impressed us with its keyboard-led design and software security but which was something of a letdown in terms of the performance under the hood and all the other stuff a modern phone is supposed to handle these days – like music and movies.

If you've got a hankering for BlackBerry phones of yesteryear though, the Key2 launch should definitely be worth looking out for. The tagline on the invitation is "an icon reborn", so that sure sounds like BlackBerry's classic approach updated for the world in 2018.

Classic BlackBerry

BlackBerry phones have been threatening to mount a comeback for several years now – remember the 2014 BlackBerry Classic? With BlackBerry devices now under the TCL umbrella, let's hope they can get it just a little bit more right this time around.

Based on what we've heard so far, we're expecting a dual-lens camera on the back of the device, and of course a proper keyboard that you can mash your digits into. We're hoping that there's enough oomph under the hood too, so it can keep up with demanding tasks.

We're now less than a month away from that launch date, so we should start to hear more rumors and leaks drip through in the days ahead, but we'll also bring you all the official news as it's announced from New York. In a year that's been dominated by top-quality phones, BlackBerry Mobile has its work cut out to keep up.

• BlackBerry KeyTwo takes another step closer to reality

Via Android Police

Information on the rumored follow-up to the BlackBerry KeyOne is starting to increase in volume, with the latest leaks seeing the keyboard-toting handset head through China's TENAA certification agency as well as appearing in some revealing spy shots.

Currently dubbed the BlackBerry KeyTwo (or Key2), the image uploaded to TENAA shows a device which looks similar to the KeyOne, with a physical keyboard below what appears to be an almost bezel-less display.

The design appears to fit with a render of the handset that leaked a few weeks ago, but that previous rumor showed us that the KeyTwo may well have bezels above and below its screen.

In the flesh

It's not just the imagery from TENAA that we've got though, with a couple of shots claiming to show the new Key2 handset appearing on the CrackBerry forum and micro-blogging site Weibo.

A watermark in the corner of one of the images suggests the handset will be branded the BlackBerry Key2 (rather than KeyTwo), but we'll have to wait for the phone's official launch to know for sure.

With all of these leaks providing a similar looking handset, it gives each one more credibility, although there's still no guarantee that this is the handset we'll see BlackBerry Mobile launch this year.

• BlackBerry Mobile: 'we understand we are not for everyone' but 'we're here to stay'

Last year, BlackBerry Mobile launched the KeyOne, which took inspiration from the legacy handsets of the company while packing in 2017 tech and Android software, and now the company looks set to update the range later this year.

We've now seen our first photo of the phone rumored to be called the BlackBerry KeyTwo (but that may be stylized as Key 2) and that we've previously heard codenamed as Athena.

Previously we'd just heard rumors of the device, but below the press render supplied by sources to SlashLeaks suggests the phone really is in development.

Extra spec

The render seems to suggest there will be a dual-lens camera on the back of the device, so it's following a lot of other companies that are using multiple cameras to boost image quality.

It also suggests that TCL (the company behind BlackBerry Mobile handsets in 2018) will keep the 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the phone and it may even be a touch slimmer than the KeyOne.

Unlike a lot of other handsets in 2018, this suggests BlackBerry Mobile won't be embracing the all-screen with added notch design that we've seen on a variety of top-end phones. 

If you're a fan of the physical keyboard, you may be in luck when we hear official word from BlackBerry Mobile. When that will be isn't clear yet, but we'll be sure to update you when we hear more about the BlackBerry KeyTwo.

• Read our full BlackBerry KeyOne review

Via TalkAndroid

"We feel like it's mission accomplished."

It's a statement you may not expect to hear from BlackBerry Mobile, but that's exactly what the firm's Global General Manager, Francois Mahieu told us at MWC 2018.

That accomplishment in a little more detail is "in terms of establishing BlackBerry and KeyOne over the past year. If you look at our global footprint, we're everywhere. It's hard to find somewhere where the KeyOne is not available," Mahieu explained.

The KeyOne is a year old itself, launched on this exact date in 2017, during MWC in Barcelona, and it's now in most major markets around the world. Not bad for a physical keyboard form factor that many raised eyebrows at when it was first unveiled.

While in the grand scheme of smartphone shipments, the new BlackBerry Mobile proposition (owned by TCL, which licences the name for use on phones) of the KeyOne and the full-touch BlackBerry Motion are no more than a drop in the ocean, but the firm is keen to narrow its parameters to the premium tier to show you its success.

Not in a race to the top

"3-5% market share in the premium tier is a nice share," Mahieu says, "and it shows we are heading in the right direction. We know grabbing market share from the two big giants is not easy."

Trying to topple the likes of Apple and Samsung isn't the plan here though, rather BlackBerry Mobile wants to take its time and build a stable business that's relevant.

Looking forward to the next mission, Mahieu said "our ambition is to firmly establish ourselves above our current market share in premium tier. 

"We are not in a race for volume. We understand it takes time to rebuild an operation, and we understand BlackBerry is not for everyone.

"We will be firmly staying in a premium category, innovating around keyboards, materials and areas to show people we’re here to stay. It’s a marathon, not a sprint."

It's not all about the 'board

While BlackBerry Mobile still has a staunch physical keyboard loving fan base, it's aware handsets such as the KeyOne have a limited appeal and that it needs to offer choice.  

"You don't need a thousand phones in your portfolio to be a success, but you need a few" Mathieu told us. 

We've seen the likes of OnePlus and Honor have decent levels of success with a limited number of hardware offerings, and the door is open for BlackBerry Mobile to do the same. 

This is especially true in the enterprise world, where the BlackBerry brand is once again seeing traction after some years back in the wilderness. 

"You can't just offer a keyboard option to employees, you have to offer them a choice between full touch and keyboard."

It's not just the BlackBerry faithful who are buying the handsets either, as the firm claims that 50% of sales are to people coming from other Android or iOS devices.

It's trying to gain back the users it lost when BlackBerry handsets of old feel behind times in terms of the screen, form factor and app offering of rivals. It forced users off the platform, even if they did like the physical keyboard.  

There's still a certain level of promotion required though, as BlackBerry Mobile is finding that in some markets people still don't know the newest phones run Android and thus have all the apps they need. 

"We are patiently building the BlackBerry brand on the handset side," Mahieu concludes. 

"We don't think the timing is quite right yet to take us to a much bigger level, but the seeds of success have been planted."

Whether those seeds are enough to truly reinvigorate the brand remains to be seen. It's unlikely to see the same success it had pre-iPhone, but with a more strategic outlook, and some honest self-realization, the BlackBerry phone brand looks to be back on track. 

Update: We've updated the headline of this piece to read "BlackBerry Mobile" rather than "BlackBerry" to avoid conflict between the software business (BlackBerry) and the hardware business owned and operated by TCL (BlackBerry Mobile).

MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest exhibition for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting live from Barcelona all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated MWC 2018 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about your next phone.

Popular messaging app WhatsApp rocked the BlackBerry boat at the end of 2017 when it confirmed it would pull all support for the BlackBerry 10 and BBOS operating systems, rendering the app useless on handsets such as the Z10, Q10, Q5 and Z30.

However, it appears WhatsApp's decision has had a knock-on effect to the rest of the BlackBerry line of smartphones, as the firm has now seen fit to issue a statement that the messaging application still works on its Android devices.

In a statement sent to TechRadar, BlackBerry said "As you may have heard, WhatsApp has decided to end support starting this week, for BlackBerry devices running BlackBerry 10 OS and BBOS.

"The good news is, this doesn't impact Android-powered BlackBerry smartphones like the BlackBerry KeyOne and BlackBerry Motion. 

"Since these new modern BlackBerry smartphones are powered by Android, they receive the usual WhatsApp updates published through the Google Play Store."

What's App-ening?

If you rely on WhatsApp as a main form of communication and are still rocking a handset running either BlackBerry 10 or BBOS, 1) what are you doing? You must be due an upgrade, and 2) it's time to upgrade!

If you can't live without a physical keyboard on your phone, the BlackBerry brand still has you covered with the Priv and KeyOne, while handsets such as the DTEK50, DTEK60 and Motion provide a more modern, full touchscreen design.

The key point here though, is that they all run Android, and thus WhatsApp.

• Read our in-depth (WhatsApp-packing) BlackBerry Motion review

There's a new BlackBerry on the block, but it's not a whole new handset, for now.

Rather, it's a new color as the iconic brand has announced the BlackBerry KeyOne Bronze Edition at CES 2018.

Like the Black Edition of the keyboard-toting handset, the Bronze Edition comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, up from the 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage on the standard KeyOne.

Something new the Bronze Edition of the KeyOne has is dual-SIM support, which is popular in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

There's currently no word on the BlackBerry KeyOne Bronze Edition release date or price.

BlackBerry KeyOne Bronze Edition hands on gallery

More where that came from

BlackBerry Mobile told TechRadar that this will likely be the last color variant of the KeyOne it will launch, as it looks forward to new product launches.

However it goes further than that, with Alain Lejeune, Global General Manager for BlackBerry Mobile confirming that it will launch "at least two new phones" in 2018.

Separately, TechRadar was told that we can expect "new keyboard phones" this year - note the plural on phones. BlackBerry wouldn't be drawn on revealing any more information on its upcoming phones, so for now you'll have to watch this space.

• New year, new tech – check out all our coverage of CES 2018 straight from Las Vegas, the greatest gadget show on Earth

As ever, the codename for this BlackBerry was far cooler than the one it ended up with. The rumoured all-touch ‘Krypton’ became the BlackBerry Motion, a label less baffling than some of the brand’s previous choices (Priv, Passport, DTEK60…) but still not nearly as intoxicating as its temporary name implied.

The same can be said of the handset, which fulfils the BlackBerry image perfectly: it’s a solid middle-of-the-road phone with little to get excited about.

Highlights include the generous 4,000mAh battery, the highly-regarded BlackBerry security software, and some extras that - while fairly standard in the Android market - are not common to BlackBerry phones.

These include dual-SIM capability, IP67-rated water resistance, and a 5.5-inch 1080p screen with no hardware keyboard on or underneath it. Really, this is the phone BlackBerry should have produced when it was busy trying to make BlackBerry 10 happen, but that ship has very much sailed.

BlackBerry Motion price and availability

The Motion costs a little less than its hard-keyed sibling, coming in at £399 (around $535, AU$705) to the KeyOne's £499 ($549, AU$729), though there's no word yet on a US or Australian release. 

That price pits it directly against well-reviewed droids including the diminutive Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact, the slightly ageing LG G6, and fellow back-from-the-dead brand effort, the Nokia 8 - plus there's just £50 (around $65, AU$90) between it and the excellent OnePlus 5T.

The middle manager of phones

• Standard-issue hardware
• Generous battery pack

The BlackBerry Motion seems designed more for the mainstream than some of BlackBerry’s previous releases: it has an accessible price point, has picked up some useful features from its competitors, and doesn’t have a big (and arguably these days, pointless) keyboard underneath.

Effort (and money) has been focused on the areas that matter most in the workplace, with everything else just ‘Okay’ - there are no deal breakers, but it’s hard to get hyped about standard-issue features like a 1080p LCD screen and 12MP camera. Even the storage is meh: 32GB on board, plus a microSD slot.

The two features BlackBerry Mobile will be counting on to shift this device are the enormous and slow-to-discharge 4000mAh battery pack, and the boss-appeasing security enhancements on top of Android Nougat.

In that sense, it’s really speaking directly to the besuited man on the commuter train - and his IT manager. Which, given BlackBerry’s total loss of brand cachet in the consumer market, is not a bad call.

Design

• Smart, sensible design
• Awkward button placement
• Solid and weighty

The BlackBerry Motion is a surprisingly heavy phone for a mid-ranger. The smart aluminium trim around the edges adds class and bulk, although the metallic strip which runs across the back and curves around to the top of the screen is, in fact, plastic.

The back panel sports a textured carbon fibre-esque pattern with the BlackBerry logo embossed in silver.

The logo also makes an appearance on the physical home key on the (massive) bezel below the screen, which incorporates a pleasingly responsive fingerprint sensor and can be swiped up and down like a touchpad to control the notification shade. However, you have to swipe slowly and decisively, or it often doesn’t work.

As you’d expect on a ‘chin’ bezel that size, there are capacitive Back and Apps buttons on either side of the home key, which light up when in use and gradually fade out.

We found this a bit annoying when reading ebooks on the phone, because turning the page counted as interacting with the device and turned the backlight on again, which meant it was always on and off while we were trying to read.

The left edge of the handset surprisingly offers no buttons, just the SIM tray. This wouldn’t be an issue except that in cramming all the keys onto the right edge, BlackBerry has ensured that you constantly mix up the power key and the programmable ‘convenience key’, which is bafflingly textured to make it seem even more like a power key.

Hand your BlackBerry Motion to someone with the screen off and we guarantee you they’ll try to use the convenience key to turn the screen on. It’s bad design, plain and simple: that key should be on the left.

Nonetheless, a programmable hardware key is a nice thing to have, and the Motion’s can be set up to launch three different apps or actions.

There are plenty to choose from, but it seems like a real oversight not to be able to program three different interactions to open them. If you choose one shortcut, it’ll launch instantly when you press the button.

We assumed the second would be two quick presses and the third a long press, but not so - set up more than one shortcut and the convenience button just pops up a menu with the three icons on it. Which isn’t all that convenient at all. You can set it up to do different things while in different profiles, or use it as a mute button on a call, however.

Above the (actual) power key is a standard volume rocker bar, which leaves the 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C charging port and speaker to be found on the bottom edge.

Display

• Full HD LCD
• Anti-scratch coating
• Can be slippery

The screen on the BlackBerry Motion sums up the phone in many ways. It’s a 5.5-inch IPS LCD panel, 1080p, 401 pixels per inch.

In other words, it’s a standard size (with the standard 16:9 aspect ratio), a slightly-outdated resolution (FHD, not QHD), not the latest tech (LCD, not OLED), with clarity and quality that’s good, but not the best. It’s fine for the price, but - like the phone - it’s not going to knock anyone’s socks off.

The screen is coated with ‘a proprietary nano-diamond anti-scratch coating’ (notably not the industry-leading Gorilla Glass) and has a slight curve rather than the much more pronounced, Samsung-ish rounding on the BlackBerry Priv display. 

It’s a little fingerprinty, but our main issue was that it’s incredibly slippery: put your phone screen-down on the desk in a meeting and it will be on the floor within seconds.

Face up, it’s fine thanks to the grippy finish on the back panel, but you really can’t put this phone face down on any surface. Not a huge problem for most people, but considering BlackBerry’s businessy audience, it does seem an oversight not to be able to conform to the meeting politeness standard of flipping your phone over.

The display offers decent brightness, but the top level isn’t as blinding as you’d expect - it’s just bright. Colours are decently saturated but not overly so, and colour temperature can be adjusted with a slider in settings. 

There’s also the now-ubiquitous night mode (somewhat confusingly called Night Light) that cuts down on sleep-disrupting blue light.

This is the setting to switch on when you use the Motion to read in the bath before bed, since it’s water and dust proof to the IP67 standard. 

You can dunk it for up to half an hour - which of course, we did - and the phone suffers no adverse effects. As ever, though, we wouldn’t recommend making a habit of it.

The phone that never sleeps

• 2-day-plus battery life
• Quick charging
• No wireless

Without a doubt, this is the biggest selling point of the BlackBerry Motion. Its stamina is insane. Packing a 4,000mAh battery, the Motion goes all day - twice.

It’s rare to find this kind of staying power on a 2017 Android, mainly because if they have a large power pack, they have a huge and demanding screen to go with it.

In that regard, the BlackBerry’s 1080p rather than higher resolution display has probably done it some favours (although OLED would still have been a better choice than LCD).

Using the handset day-to-day, the battery percentage caused a double-take more than once. It depletes slowly, and twinned with its large capacity, just keeps on going.

Even on heavy use days there was still a large chunk of power left (more than a third) by bedtime, and with more moderate use, we could easily skip the overnight charge and still have more than enough for the next day.

Charging the Motion up again is pleasingly swift, too. There’s no wireless, but it does have Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0, reaching 50% in under an hour. Which is enough for an entire day’s use - in our case email, messaging, calls, social media, photos, Netflix and a little gaming.

As with other BlackBerry handsets, plugging in to charge brings up a coloured line that gets longer and greener as the battery edges closer to full. You can turn it off, but it disappears automatically when the room is dark.

We ran our standard 90-minute HD video test on the Motion, with screen brightness set to full and various accounts syncing in the background. At the end of the video, the battery had dropped by just 10%.

That’s even better than the BlackBerry KeyOne’s result of 11%, the BlackBerry Priv at 13%, and considerably better than brand stablemates the DTEK60 (20%) and DTEK50 (27%). It’s an excellent result, and marks the BlackBerry Motion out as a particularly reliable work phone.

No-frills photos

• Scanning mode
• Quick to snap
• Not always sharp

This is not a phone to buy for its cameras. They’re fine, but more of an extra than a selling point. If you need to take a picture for work - or a photo of your flat tyre as a reason you can’t get to work - it’ll do the job.

But you wouldn’t want it for your holiday shots, for instance - not when phones like the Pixel 2 and Samsung Galaxy S8 exist.

The BlackBerry Motion’s main camera is a fairly standard 12MP f/2.0 affair. It includes fast-focus, phase-detection auto-focus, a dual-tone LED flash and 4K video at 30 frames per second.

The camera app is beautifully BlackBerry: it includes a character-recognition scanning mode that has different settings for business cards, slideshows (unhelpfully abbreviated to ‘PPT’ for PowerPoint), whiteboards and documents.

That’s both clever and quite handy on a work phone: it saves you typing up all the world-changing ideas you brainstormed earlier.

The camera starts up quickly, and there’s a built-in double-tap shortcut on the power key (just don’t mistake it for the convenience key… sigh).

The exposure dial stays at the bottom of the default app view, which seems a little specialised for a business phone, especially when the Motion also includes Manual mode with full controls.

This also makes it too easy to accidentally change the exposure by swiping on the screen, which is often a way to see the previous photo on other Androids.

The Motion’s camera is quick to snap, but can be a little misleading: photos that appeared to have focused and captured sometimes hadn’t quite finished when we moved the camera away, leading to blurry outcomes. It’s not constant, but happened enough that we were careful to take 2-3 shots for every one we needed.

In good lighting, you’ll get a clear and decent snap, albeit sometimes with the highlights blown out. Lower lighting presents more of an issue, with colours quickly becoming muddy and edges softening noticeably. We wouldn’t choose the Motion for night-out photography, that’s for sure.

The 8MP selfie camera is fine. That’s all there is to say about it, really. There’s no beauty mode, no Snapchat-like additions - just the same few filters as the main camera, that are mostly completely inappropriate for a face (unless you want to look like you’ve been on the Rioja).

So you’ll get a decent, slightly flat and cold-toned picture of your actual appearance. Keep this in mind when deciding whether to use the Locker function to take fingerprint-secured racy snaps: they might not be worth the effort. Although that’s not necessarily the Motion’s fault.

Camera samples

A home-grown BlackBerry

• Not the latest Android
• BlackBerry-made security additions
• Great (software) keyboard

For all the smug jokes the tech world makes about BlackBerry, the brand still has its fans, and they won’t be disappointed by the experience on offer here.

While the Motion still runs Android Nougat rather than the newer Oreo, all the BlackBerry staples are there: BBM, DTEK, BlackBerry Hub, and the surprisingly great Productivity Tab.

This screen pulls in from the right (or left if you change the setting) and combines data from places like your calendar, contacts, to-do lists and the weather in your area to create a comprehensive picture of what you need to do today. It’s not a reason to buy the phone, but it’s very useful as an extra.

BlackBerry Hub is more of an acquired taste: a place where all your various emails, social media notifications, texts, calls and other gubbins come together into one enormous feed of doom.

If you get a lot of messages, this quickly becomes overwhelming and we actively started to avoid looking at it. Still, no doubt it has its enthusiasts - like BBM.

Most of the rest of BlackBerry’s adjustments to Android are varying flavours of security controls, as you’d expect. There’s the DTEK app, which gives you a rating and granular explanation of how you’re doing for device security (although you get a point just for using a BlackBerry…). 

Then there's the LastPass-ish Password Keeper which we couldn’t screenshot for you due to security (smart, although you could just take a photo on another phone).

And there's Locker, which keeps certain files under lock and key - or rather, finger and print (again, no screenshots, although honestly knowing a risqué selfie was taken on a BlackBerry diminishes the appeal somewhat).

A curious addition is the Privacy Shade, which acts like a keyhole on your screen. A small adjustable window of screen is visible, and the rest is darkened to your preferred opacity, to prevent prying eyes from seeing anything juicy.

The default rectangular shape of the box suggests it’s made for reading confidential documents a few lines at a time, but in practice it’s a bit too fiddly for most people to bother. Certain politicians should probably make use of it, though.

Another distinctly BlackBerry touch is the software keyboard, which is the only OEM keyboard we have ever kept using. The floating Minority Report-ish predictions take some getting used to, but the swiping gestures (up to select a prediction, left to delete a word) become intuitive quickly.

It’s refreshing to see a manufacturer make a keyboard that’s actually an improvement on stock, rather than something to immediately replace.

Netflix and commute

• Decent all-rounder
• Solo speaker

It seems unlikely that anyone would buy this phone specifically for its movie and music prowess, but a good Android has to be an all-rounder, and the Motion does a decent enough job of that.

The screen is more than sufficient in both size and quality for commuting-time Netflix binges; the solo speaker on the bottom is fine if a little noisy at high volumes; and the bundled headphones are the standard slightly leaky, slightly uncomfortable but perfectly workable fare.

Gaming-wise, the Motion can handle intensive titles to a degree, but it’s not a gamer’s phone by any means.

You’ll be more than happy hatching your Pokémon on it (and you won’t run out of power nearly as fast as you will on most other phones), but we wouldn’t recommend it for high-octane racing and adventuring: it can get jerky and laggy at higher framerates.

Still, if you were expecting epic gaming experiences from a mid-range BlackBerry, we have questions for you.

Hard-working (ish) hardware

• Not flagship specs
• Older chipset
• Reasonable performance

The specs on the BlackBerry Motion are roughly what we would expect for this price point, although a little dated in places. You get 4GB of RAM and an octa-core chipset, but it’s the older Snapdragon 625 (with eight 2.0GHz Cortex-A53 cores).

It would have been nice to see a more recent chip like the 626 or 630, but previous BlackBerry phones have been criticised for costing a fortune (the Priv in particular), so it’s understandable that BlackBerry has chosen to keep the price tag down this way.

The 625 is still a perfectly capable chipset, and it handles well in the BlackBerry Motion even with a lot of apps thrown at it.

Filling the phone with social media, games, productivity tools and all sorts of other nonsense didn’t make an appreciable difference to its performance, and nor did quick-switching between them all.

It does get a little slow at times, particularly with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but nothing that’ll bug you too much. Performance is more than fair for the price, and won’t get in the way of getting your work done. And isn’t that the point of a BlackBerry?

Verdict

With many mid-range Androids, take the logo off and you’d be hard-pressed to figure out the manufacturer. The Motion, however, is BlackBerry through and through.

From its business-like design to the security-conscious software, the brand DNA makes its presence known. Whether that’s a good thing depends on your reasons for considering the phone.

Overall, it’s a solid mid-ranger offering a fair package for the price. There are no significant low points, just some uninspiring choices, and many of those won’t affect you much in day-to-day use. Yes, it’s nice to have a QHD screen, but when it’s not sitting next to a higher-end smartphone, you probably won’t keep noticing.

The software included on the Motion is a refreshing change from many manufacturer additions in that some of it genuinely enhances the experience - the Productivity Tab and keyboard are notable high points - and it’s great to see BlackBerry adapting to market trends for things like waterproofing, dual-sim and quick charging.

Where the BlackBerry Motion really stands out, though, is stamina. It comfortably outlasts most of its competitors, and while not everyone will love the chunkier, heavier handset that results from that focus, there’s no denying it looks smart enough to take into any meeting. 

All work and no play makes the BlackBerry Motion a decent effort from TCL.

Who's this for?

The BlackBerry Motion is a strong choice as a work phone. It’ll last through conference calls, commutes and copious emails from colleagues without blinking. 

As a personal phone, though, it would only really appeal to people who never switch off - especially those who are really private.

Should you buy it?

If you’re in the market for something that won’t keep you tethered to the nearest power point and you’re not fussed about beautiful photos or the latest hardware, this could be the droid you’re looking for.

It doesn’t represent particularly good value and it probably won’t set your world on fire, but when it’s still going after two solid days of use, will you care?

There's plenty of similarly priced competition, such as the phones below, which may be a better fit for you.

Nokia 8

If looks, screen and camera quality are important to you, the sleek Nokia 8 with its dual sensors and QHD display might be a better choice - unless you’re in the US. It’s currently only available in the UK and Australia, at £399/AU$690.

• Read our Nokia 8 review

LG G6

LG’s slightly older all-rounder offers an edge on the Motion in some areas: a gorgeous 18:9 QHD screen, excellent camera, and wireless charging (in some countries). It also offers good battery life - though the Motion has it beat on that front.

• Read our LG G6 review

OnePlus 5T

OnePlus’s latest is a little pricier, but for that you get a bigger AMOLED screen, higher-spec cameras with dual lenses on the back, and either 1.5x or fully double the RAM with more than twice the storage. It’s worth the extra cash.

• Read our OnePlus 5T review

First reviewed: November 2017

If you weren't too taken with the new flagship handsets from Apple, even the iPhone X, or Google's Pixel 2 – hey, anything's possible – there's always BlackBerry to turn to. 

Earlier today reputable leaker Evan Blass took to Twitter to post a photo of what he says is the BlackBerry 'Motion', which the rumor mill had previously been calling the BlackBerry Krypton. In an age when phones explode and health concerns still lurk, it’d probably a good thing that name was ditched.

Much like last year’s budget-friendly BlackBerry DTEK50, it chucks the tactile keyboard that’s been a hallmark of BlackBerry devices for years in favor of the touchscreen interface used for most modern smartphones.

Beyond that, we don’t know much, except that it’ll be made by TCL (who makes all of BlackBerry’s phones these days). 

TCL’s global head of sales François Mahieu said last August that the then-unnamed device would launch sometime this month. Mahieu also told Engadget around the same time that the keyboard-free device would (likely) be certified water-resistant.  

All other information is rooted in rumor, and often sketchy rumor at that. As CrackBerry reports, it’ll likely have a 1920x1080 display, 4GB of RAM, a 4000 mAh battery, and a Snapdragon 625 or 626 processor. It’ll also likely have a home button with a fingerprint scanner, which Blass’ photo seems to confirm. 

In other words, it’s tempting to dismiss it as a fairly ordinary Android phone, with little to distinguish it apart from the waterproofing and (likely) a comparatively secure Android system as we saw with the DTEK50. Yet BlackBerry, of course, has surprised us in the past, and there’s always a chance they will again.

• Can't imagine a BlackBerry without the physical keyboard? There's always the BlackBerry KeyOne to consider.

Eyebrows were raised when TCL – the firm licensing the BlackBerry name for smartphones – launched the BlackBerry KeyOne at the start of 2017.

It boasts a physical keyboard in a world where mobile devices have almost universally moved to full touchscreen offerings, but the firm believes it’s a form factor that’s here to stay.

TechRadar sat down with Francois Mahieu, BlackBerry Mobile's ‎Global GM (Chief Commercial Officer) at IFA 2017 to talk about the firm’s latest phone, the KeyOne Black Edition, as well as what’s in store for the BlackBerry phone brand going forward.

“The [physical keyboard] form factor is here to stay” Mahieu told us. “I don’t know what [the next phone] will be called, or what specs it’ll have, but the form factor is here to stay for a very, very long time.”

That means we can expect another physical keyboard-toting device bearing the BlackBerry name in the near future, although Mahieu wouldn't be drawn on what else the handset may offer.

What it won’t be though, is a budget BlackBerry phone.

Not in the 'cheap BlackBerry' mindset

"Adding a keyboard to a phone adds cost to the phone” Mahieu explains. 

“There’s a moment in time where you have to think, what am I trying to do here? Am I trying to make a cheap BlackBerry, or am I actually trying to say BlackBerry is here with a certain mindset and DNA.

"We don’t thing we’re expensive, we don’t think we’re cheap... We are in a sweet spot in the market that in a way screams value already, what we call premium smart value. We are not in the mindset of building of a cheap BlackBerry."

Whether or not you agree that the BlackBerry KeyOne, at £499, screams premium value is up to you, and there are fair arguments to say it doesn’t – but BlackBerry remains buoyant about its chances.

In fact, the KeyOne has performed better than the firm was expecting, which has given it encouragement to continue on its way of offering secure productivity devices.

Will physical keyboards on smartphones return to the mainstream? No, not really, but there’s clearly a market who’s enjoying the current offering from BlackBerry and it’ll be interesting to see what comes next.

• IFA 2017 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced. 

The BlackBerry KeyOne Black Edition has been officially released at IFA 2017 in Berlin, offering physical keyboard fans a fresh new(ish) look and a bit of extra grunt under the hood.

In terms of design and most of its specs, the new KeyOne Black Edition is identical to the silver variant that launched at the start of 2017, but there are two key upgrades (over and above the stylish, yet understated black finish).

Firstly BlackBerry – or rather TCL, the firm that licenses the brand name to stick on handsets – has upped the RAM from 3GB in the original to 4GB in the Black Edition.

While it gives the Black Edition a little extra zip on screen, you’re unlikely to notice too much difference during day to day usage.

It should mean that the new KeyOne should perform better when it comes to heavy lifting tasks, although we were unable to put it to the test during our brief hands on time.

The second upgrade comes in the form of more space for all your stuff, with 64GB of storage stuffed inside (up from 32GB). It may be a welcome addition for some users, but the fact that both the KeyOne and KeyOne Black Edition both come with microSD slots that support cards up to 2TB in size means the boost here is a little less impressive.

For handsets such as the OnePlus 5 and iPhone 7 that don’t have an expandable storage option, offering different tiers of space makes sense. It’s a little more difficult to justify the move, and additional cost, here.

BlackBerry KeyOne Black Edition hands on gallery

A swish new look

The new color is actually rather nice, and we prefer it over the silver version. The black matte finish is sleek and stylish, which will suit those looking for something a little more understated than the slightly flash, silver KeyOne.

We still have reservations about the physical keyboard though, as typing on it requires a low grip on the phone which can make things a little top heavy and unwieldy in the hand – although there’s still a staunch fan base for physical keys out there.

In terms of the rest of what the KeyOne Black Edition offers, there’s a 4.5-inch full HD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, 12MP rear camera, 8MP front facing camera, Android 7.1 and a 3,505mAh battery. Oh, and the physical keyboard with a fingerprint scanner built into the space bar.

It also comes with BlackBerry’s security and privacy features, with additional safety functions built into the software and the inclusion of the DTEK app which helps you control which apps can see your personal data.

So what will the extra RAM and storage, and that new color scheme, set you back?  The BackBerry KeyOne Black Edition will go on sale initially in the UK during mid-September with a retail price of £549 (around $700, AU$890).

That’s a small jump from the £499 ($579.99, around AU$730) price tag of the standard KeyOne, and BlackBerry says it’ll roll the handset out to more countries, including the US and Canada, in the weeks following the UK launch.

KeyOne vs KeyOne Black Edition hands on gallery

• Read our in-depth BlackBerry KeyOne review

IFA 2017 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced.

While many flocked to BlackBerry phones because of their tactile QWERTY keyboards, those who prefer the sleek feel of touchscreens may perk up at the next BlackBerry handset in the pipeline.

TCL, the manufacturer now in charge of the BlackBerry brand, has plans to release a companion device to the BlackBerry KeyOne. 

Only this time, according to TCL's global head of sales François Mahieu (via CNET), the built-in keyboard will be taken away in favor of a full touchscreen display.

The new BlackBerry smartphone comes as somewhat of a shock because not only will it ditch the company's signature physical keyboard, it will also be here in just two months. 

That's right: the new, touchscreen-only BlackBerry phone has a release planned for sometime in October. 

BlackBerry KeyLess

Mahieu said the new phone will cost about the same as the KeyOne, which rings in at $549 (£499, AU$729), which is actually still cheaper than the iPhone 7 or the Samsung Galaxy S8. 

Still, the new BlackBerry phone will occupy the higher end of the spectrum compared to the company's more budget-friendly, touchscreen-only Android phones: the BlackBerry DTEK50 and DTEK60. 

According to Engadget, the touch-only handset will also be certified water-resistant, a first for the BlackBerry brand.

While Mahieu assured BlackBerry isn't ditching keyboards for good, this could prove to be a smart way to attract new buyers in an era of near ubiquitous touchscreen-only phones. It can pay to mix up your offerings, and TCL sounds willing to try just that. 

• Everything you need to know about Android Oreo

BlackBerry KeyOne is the big comeback for everyone's favorite (and pretty much only) option for a smartphone with a tactile physical keyboard.

It's being dubbed the world's most secure Android phone, runs Android 7.1 Nougat with Google Assistant, and has the same camera sensor at the Google Pixel.

When can you get your fingers on that old-school keyboard in a modern phone? It goes on sale May 31 in the US with a KeyOne price tag of $549 (it'll be about AU$735 in Australia).

Canada is getting first dibs on this phone. Even though it's being made by TCL Communications out of China, the Canadian brand still has home field advantage with pre-orders starting on May 18 for $199 CAD and the same May 31 delivery date as the US.

Does BlackBerry stand a chance?

We first saw the BlackBerry KeyOne at CES 2017, and it's an impressive attempt at reinventing the enterprise-focused smartphone.

It's all about the physical keyboard, which felt like a great throwback to the days before all-screen phones and on-screen keyboards.

BlackBerry's software is the other half of the story. BlackBerry Hub, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and easy-to-make security tweaks are a real selling point.

You won't find top-of-the-line specs to compete with the Galaxy S8 or the iPhone 7, but it's also cheaper than both Apple and Samsung's flagships.

Is this enough for BlackBerry to become an iconic smartphone brand again in the year 2017? We'll know for sure by the end of next month.

BlackBerry has just launched a new phone, called the Aurora, packing a low to mid-range price, a big screen and a curious mix of lower and upper end specs.

If you want to buy it, well, you can’t outside Indonesia, or not right now anyway. But it’s always possible we’ll see something similar get a wider launch. 

In the meantime, here’s everything you need to know about the BlackBerry Aurora.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The latest affordable BlackBerry handset
• When is it out? Now, but only in Indonesia
• What does it cost? Roughly $260/£215/AU$345

BlackBerry Aurora release date and price

The BlackBerry Aurora is out now, but currently only in Indonesia where it sells for the equivalent of around $260/£215/AU$345.

The handset is aimed at emerging markets, so it’s unlikely we’ll see it in the US, UK or Australia, but it’s possible that a similar phone could at some point be launched globally by TCL (the company now responsible for BlackBerry branded hardware).

BlackBerry also has a new phone called the KeyOne, which will be released globally in April.

BlackBerry Aurora design and screen

The BlackBerry Aurora has a fairly plain design, with a textured plastic shell in black, silver or gold. It’s 152 x 76.8 x 8.5mm and 178g, and unlike some BlackBerry devices there’s no QWERTY keyboard here, just a 5.5-inch 720 x 1280 touchscreen surrounded by sizeable bezels.

At that size and resolution, the display is just 267 pixels per inch, which isn’t particularly sharp, even for the money, but the BlackBerry Aurora justifies its price tag in other ways, as you’ll see below.

BlackBerry Aurora OS and power

The beating heart of the BlackBerry Aurora is an entry-level quad-core Snapdragon 425 chipset clocked at 1.4GHz.

While that’s unremarkable, the 4GB of RAM that accompanies it is rather more notable, matching flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G6. That’s significantly more RAM than most phones at this sort of price have.

The Aurora also has 32GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot with support for cards of up to 256GB. It’s also got dual-SIM support, which while not super exciting is a first for a BlackBerry phone.

Another notable feature of the BlackBerry Aurora is its use of Android 7 Nougat, which is the latest major release of the OS and one which few phones yet run.

BlackBerry Aurora camera and battery

The BlackBerry Aurora has a 13MP rear camera with a dual-LED flash, while around the front there’s an 8MP one. A 3,000mAh battery keeps the phone alive.

• The BlackBerry KeyOne will be getting a wider launch.

TCL has finally revealed the name of its next BlackBerry-branded flagship Android smartphone after teasing the phone-with-no-name at CES 2017 earlier this year – say hello to the BlackBerry KeyOne.

We now know the KeyOne has a full HD, 4.5-inch display and the biggest battery ever put into a BlackBerry phone - a 3,505mAh power pack. 

It also includes Boost fast charging via the USB Type-C port at the bottom which puts the Keyone in a low power mode to maximize the charging.

Under the hood there's a Snapdragon 625 chipset in charge of running everything on screen.

We already new the KeyOne featured a full physical QWERTY keyboard below a touchscreen with Android 7.1 Nougat and an aluminium body with a soft-grip back.

The most secure Android experience

TCL says the BlackBerry Keyone is the most secure Android smartphone experience available today, a claim a number of companies are trying to make.

Security is baked into both the hardware and software, and you also get BlackBerry's DTEK application pre-installed which gives you an overview of your phone's security. The app will even make suggestions on how to improve the privacy on the Keyone.

The BlackBerry KeyOne release date is set globally for April 2017 and the KeyOne price is £499 ($549, around AU$810).

MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest exhibition for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting live from Barcelona all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated MWC 2017 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about your next phone.

BlackBerry has already confirmed it will provide more details of the Mercury at MWC 2017 (Mobile World Congress), but it seems the company may also have another surprise for us at the show.

Recent leaks originating from tipster @rquandt show what looks to be a budget BlackBerry phone – codenamed the BBC100-1 – that features lower specs than we’d usually expect from a BlackBerry device.

The leak suggests it has a 5.5-inch display, but it’s only 720p so we don’t expect this to be an expensive handset.

An extra BlackBerry treat

It also features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chipset – that’s a little used chip we’ve previously seen in the Xiaomi Redmi 4A – as well as 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

There’s also a 3,000mAh battery, dual-SIM support, an 8MP selfie camera and the rear has a 13MP shooter.

It looks like this phone will be the first project from BlackBerry’s joint BB Merah Putih venture though. 

That's a software licensing strategy that brings a number of Indonesian companies together to work on new software and services, so this looks like a phone that will be exclusive to emerging markets.

We expect this could be announced at MWC 2017 though, which takes place in Barcelona between February 27 and March 2.

• MWC 2017 - everything we expect to see at the biggest show in mobile

Following the release of the DTEK50 and DTEK60, BlackBerry's next step in its Android-making venture - colloquially named BlackBerry Mercury - is on the horizon.

The news broke via a newly activated Twitter account for the security-minded phone maker. Its only tweet thus far teases something "distinctly different" coming on February 25, two days before MWC 2017 opens its doors but during the period when many companies announce their wares for the show.

The shadowy figure in the tease looks an awful lot like the Nougat-powered BlackBerry Mercury, which we got our hands on during this month's CES 2017 and is expected to release during Q1. 

The Mercury also brings back the BlackBerry Classic's physical keyboard - something fans of the company's trademark clickety-clack have missed since the under-performing BlackBerry Priv.

In addition to learning the handset's official name, price, and release date, we hope to see the BlackBerry Mercury in action during MWC 2017 and get some hands-on time with that tactile keyboard for ourselves.

That said, if there's one thing that will likely disappoint us, it's the name. The last two handsets released in BlackBerry's Android line somehow went from the cool codenames Neon and Argon to the painfully unmarketable DTEK50 and DTEK60.

• Watch out: Android lock patterns may not be as secure as you think

The CEO of the company that's bringing BlackBerry phones to the world has told TechRadar the new venture won’t suffer from the same problems as the ill-fated Microsoft-Nokia tie-up.

Chinese phone manufacturer TCL – the fourth-largest in the world thanks to the sales under its Alcatel One Touch brand – struck a long-term deal to produce devices under the BlackBerry brand, and launched an all-new BlackBerry device at CES with a physical keyboard and a distinctly business look.

But this is a hardware manufacturer tying up with a software company, leveraging a once-great brand; could this be Microsoft-Nokia all over again?

“[The TCL-BlackBerry] is a fundamentally different situation,” said Nicolas Zibell, chief executive of TCL Communication at CES 2017, citing Windows Phone as the main obstacle to Microsoft and Nokia’s failed partnership.

“Microsoft imposed its OS, which was small-scale in terms of users, apps and the ecosystem, on a brand that had not been successful in the smartphone space,” he said.

Until that deal, Nokia had only been successful in first-gen smartphones running on Symbian. It's a deal that seems mirrored here, where TCL is estimated by Futuresource Consulting to hold 2.7% of the global smartphone market in 2016, shipping 44 million units.

“This deal is very different because we are using Android as a pure experience, we don’t make compromises on the app store, and we are bringing unique security solutions and hardware innovations,” added Zibell.

He's hoping that the licensing deal with BlackBerry creates not risk but cost efficiency for both companies. Ultimately, an expansion of the BlackBerry brand is on the cards if successful, where cost-effective labor is combined with BlackBerry's secure servers, which are still a powerful lure in the world of enterprise.

TCL has work to do. In 2016 BlackBerry had just 0.2% of the global market, selling 2.5 million phones according to Futuresource Consulting.

Just how hungry the market is for a phone with a physical keyboard remains to be seen, and it’s not certain that the loyalty of BlackBerry fans can be counted on  – although Zibell is optimistic.

“We know there are people that hang on to a BlackBerry phone longer than most people hang on to their phones,” he said, citing the keyboard as a critical part of the appeal for many.

That said, the BlackBerry brand under TCL won’t only be about physical keyboards. The first products from the tie-up, the DTEK50  and DTEK60, both push ‘most secure phone in the world’ claims but are touchscreen only.

“There will be more purpose-built devices in future,” said Zibell. “Not everything has to look like a black piece of glass, and we can bring something different.”

A bezel-less BlackBerry?

He also suggested that in the future there would be more affordable phones with borderless, bezel-less displays, and that in the longer term the market will see a lot of innovation in AI and voice interaction, which will reduce the importance of the display. 

Voice commands could replace almost every action, from page navigation to actions within games, and even make apps defunct.  

In many ways, that starts with the forthcoming (unnamed) BlackBerry phone, whose keyboard can be used to navigate the screen just by lightly brushing it with fingers. 

It's simultaneously retro and cutting-edge (Zibell told us it would work in an all-new way compared to previous BlackBerry phones like the Passport). As such, there’s no doubt about the target market for this leather-backed device.

“BlackBerry owners want everything you need for a modern business life – security, a long-lasting device, one that’s not as slippery as a soap bar and needs a case, a real camera and real apps,” said Zibell.

“One of the reasons BlackBerry has lost some of its appeal is that people had to compromise between good email and security, and they had to sacrifice a good web browsing experience and apps,” said Zibell. 

“We’re bringing back a ‘no compromises’ approach.”

Just yesterday a new handset believed to be called the BlackBerry Press got officially teased ahead of its expected launch at CES 2017, and, while the teaser didn’t give much away, we may have just seen the handset in full, with leaked renders showing off the front and back of the device.

The images, which were shared on Weibo, are accompanied by a decent spec list and show a phone with an apparently 4.6-inch touchscreen, with a keyboard below it, while there’s a rather large camera lens on the back.

Sadly, the specs of the camera aren’t listed, but others are, including a Snapdragon 625 chipset, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and a 3400mAh battery, all of which largely lines up with an earlier leak, which added that the rear camera is apparently 18MP, with an 8MP one round the front.

Pressed for a name

Despite yesterday’s tease suggesting the phone was called the BlackBerry Press, it’s actually listed as the BlackBerry DTEK70 here, which would mark it as part of the same range as the BlackBerry DTEK50 and BlackBerry DTEK60.

Calling it the Press might make more sense though, as the other DTEK handsets don’t have physical keyboards, making them quite a different proposition.

Whatever it ends up being called, we can assume that it will include BlackBerry’s DTEK software for security and encryption, which along with the keyboard is likely to be a major selling point of the phone.

We should know soon, as the same leak notes that the BlackBerry Press will be announced at some point today, which likely means we'll see it at CES 2017.

• Via AndroidPure
• Main image credit: Weibo

The BlackBerry Press looks like it’ll be launching at CES 2017, coming with a fan-favorite keyboard but also some ‘glimpses of the future’.

Hot on the heels of the BlackBerry DTEK60, a new phone has been leaked by Steve Cistulli the North American president of TCT, the brand now behind BlackBerry phones.

The handset is just being teased in a short video at the moment, but the press is very likely to be appearing at CES this year given Cistulli has essentially said as much already:

"We'll unveil more news at CES around our plans, showcasing the legacy of the BlackBerry smartphone brand,” he told the Press Association recently.

“[We’ll] also be giving a glimpse into what new BlackBerry smartphones will offer as part of our bold new brand portfolio within TCT. 

“These are just the building blocks of our new growth strategy, with additional announcements to come in 2017."

Pressing on

The new BlackBerry Press will still be running on Android, as the icons in the video give away, but will retain the same clickable keyboard that BlackBerry fans adore, with the raised plastic keys for speedy typing.

We’ve seen this rumored already under the codename of the BlackBerry Mercury, a phone that will offer a 4.5-inch display (with an unusual 3:2 ratio rectangular screen), a 2.0GHz Qualcomm CPU, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

The phone is also said to have an 18MP rear camera and an 8MP snapper at the front.

Quite what the phone will reveal in terms of a ‘glimpse into what new BlackBerry smartphones will offer’ is up for debate, as the Mercury looked a lot like a fancier version of the unimpressive DTEK50 and DTEK60.

The likelihood is that security will once again be the ‘future’ of these phones - but we’ll have to wait a few days to find out.

• Are BlackBerry and Samsung phones really that secure?

TCL just let us in on its plans for CES 2017 early next month, and - surprise, surprise - they revolve squarely around BlackBerry. 

To get you caught up: TCL, a Chinese company best known for TVs and Alcatel phones, recently forged an agreement with the Canadian firm to release handsets under the BlackBerry brand. During CES, we may get our first look at the fruits of this partnership. 

As outlined in a press release, TCL "will unveil an evolutionary first in the mobile industry, which will include the addition of the new BlackBerry brand of smartphones, complimenting the company's current portfolio" during the show.

No further details on what exactly TCL is plotting were provided, so it's unclear if it will announce actual phones or simply discuss the kinds of devices it will release down the line. 

This being the biggest tech show on the planet, however, our bet is on TCL packing a handset we can get our mitts on.

One thing we can say is TCL has lofty ambitions. It hopes to hopscotch from its fourth-place position in the North America phone market to "a tier one portfolio brand." At CES, the company will outline how it plans to take BlackBerry's legacy and bring it to "a new generation of smartphones."

"We'll unveil more news at CES around our plans, showcasing the legacy of the BlackBerry smartphone brand, while also giving a glimpse into what new BlackBerry smartphones will offer as part of our bold new brand portfolio within [TCL]," Steve Cistulli, head of TCL in North America, said in the release.

Though it's unclear whether a phone or phones will be at CES or unveiled some time later, a key detail from today's release is that the new BlackBerry handsets sound to be in the premium level as TCL looks to move beyond budget phones.

We'll be on the ground at CES 2017 to bring you the latest on this new incarnation of BlackBerry, so stay tuned for more.

• Here are the best smartphones you can buy right now

BlackBerry is having one final, three-pronged go at the handset game: we've seen the  DTEK50 and DTEK60, and the last in the series, the DTEK70 or BlackBerry Mercury, is supposedly going to come with a classic BlackBerry-style keyboard.

Now we have what could be our first look at the upcoming Mercury with a set of images leaked on Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-style social networking platform - the images show a strangely-shaped handset, running Android and with a QWERTY keyboard at the bottom.

As GSMArena reports, the pictures aren't dissimilar to others leaked back in June from an internal BlackBerry presentation. It was early in the summer that news first started to spread about BlackBerry's three-handset plans.

Specs and design

The specs rumored so far include a 4.5-inch display (with the unusual 3:2 ratio we just mentioned), a 2.0GHz Qualcomm CPU, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The phone will reportedly come rocking an 18MP rear camera and an 8MP snapper at the front.

As for a launch date, Q1 2017 has been mentioned, so we shouldn't have too long to wait to hear something official. If you're in the market for an BlackBerry handset with a real physical keyboard, this might be your last chance.

While the photos do match what we've heard about the BlackBerry Mercury so far, they're not from one of the most reputable sources on the web, so we wouldn't bet the house on this being the final design just yet.

• BlackBerry's next phones may be its last gasp with Android

Reports of BlackBerry's demise have clearly been exaggerated, as the business-focused phone maker has just released another high-end Android smartphone, despite claims that it was moving away from hardware towards software.

While the DTEK60 is indeed a new device bearing the BlackBerry name, the production has been outsourced to Chinese firm TCL, which also works with the likes of Alcatel and Vodafone.

It's packing a 5.5-inch QHD screen, a Snapdragon 820 chipset, 4GB of RAM, a fingerprint scanner and 21MP main camera. That’s a strong assortment of specs, and the DTEK60 aims to stand out further by offering a suite of security-oriented apps and features which, according to BlackBerry, make this one of the most secure phones money can buy.

That’s a good thing too, because at $499 (£475, around AU$650) the sheer strength of specs may not be enough to compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and HTC 10.

Key features

• BlackBerry’s first finger scanner
• High-end specs
• A focus on security

With BlackBerry essentially handing over design and construction duties to hardware partner TCL, the DTEK60 feels more like a traditional Android smartphone that any other device to bear the famous BlackBerry logo – including the Priv and DTEK50, both of which also run Android.

BlackBerry is clearly gunning for the same sector of the market that laps up phones like the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and Google Pixel XL, and it shows in the core design and feature list of the DTEK60.

There's no physical keyboard here – BlackBerry is slowly abandoning the one feature that truly set its phones apart from the competition – and in its place we have a roomy, 1440 x 2560 AMOLED screen which measures 5.5-inches from corner to corner.

Inside the phone there's a Snapdragon 820 processor – the same tech that can be found in flagship devices such as the Galaxy S7, Xiaomi Mi5 and LG G5 – as well as 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

The presence of a microSD card slot means you can add in more memory if you wish. NFC is also included, so you can make contactless payments via Android Pay.

For such a security-centric company it's perhaps surprising that BlackBerry hasn't included a fingerprint scanner on any of its previous phones. There's one on the DTEK60, and the good news is that it's fast, responsive and permits users to unlock the device with a single touch of their digit.

Like so many Android handsets, the DTEK60 has its scanner located on the rear of the device, where your finger naturally lies when you hold it in your hand.

Above the scanner there's a considerable camera bump, which contains the 21MP snapper. It's rocking phase detection autofocus and a dual-tone LED flash, but sadly lacks optical image stabilization. The front-facing camera is an 8MP, fixed focus variant and is perfect for selfies thanks to its LED flash.

While the DTEK60 is running a largely stock version of Android 6.0 – which means it's close to the user experience you'd get from a Nexus (or Pixel) device – it does come with some neat extras which focus on business users and general security, including the DTEK app, which monitors the handset and its running applications, warning you of potential risks and weaknesses.

A 3000mAh battery keeps things ticking over and provides enough stamina to last an entire day. Quick Charge support means you can completely fill the battery from empty in just over an hour, or alternatively you can grab a few hours of battery life by hooking it up for a 15-minute charge.

Design and display

• Bright, high-quality QHD screen
• Metal frame and slippery plastic rear panel
• Handy convenience key

At 6.99mm, the DTEK60 is the thinnest BlackBerry yet. The front of the phone is covered in 2.5D glass, while the rear features hardened plastic and the familiar BlackBerry logo. You'll also find the fingerprint scanner and 21MP camera on the back, the latter of which protrudes quite dramatically from the body of the device.

Around the edges there's a metal frame with neatly beveled edges, as well as the power button on the left-hand side, and volume rocker and "convenience button" on the right.

On the topic of the power button, we think it's in an odd place – the top corner of the left edge – and we repeatedly found ourselves stabbing the convenience key instead, a possible throwback to the days when we owned a Sony Xperia.

Muscle memory aside, there's no doubting that the button's positioning is weird – but not disastrous, as you can use the fingerprint scanner to wake the phone from sleep. On the top of the DTEK60 there's the 3.5mm headphone socket and on the bottom end the USB Type-C port.

Despite substituting tempered glass for plastic on its rear, the DTEK60 is still quite a slippery beast. During the review period, our handset actually slid right off the desk and onto the hard floor, so we'd recommend getting a case early on.

On the positive side, the phone survived this heart-stopping fall with just a few nicks on the corners, so it's clearly solidly built – which is impressive for such a svelte device.

It may be made by an external company, but there's still plenty of BlackBerry's DNA in the design of the DTEK60. The curves remind us of the iconic Bold series, while the convenience key will be instantly familiar to long-time supporters of the brand.

You can assign it different roles – we use it to instantly launch Google Now, for example – and after a few days in the company of the DTEK60 we found ourselves wishing that more phones boasted such a button. Being able to instantly launch an oft-used app from any screen is a lot more useful than it might sound on paper.

For a company which for many years forced its users to stare at awkward landscape-oriented displays, BlackBerry has certainly embraced the big-screen mobile revolution. The 5.5-inch panel on the DTEK60 has a pin-sharp resolution of 1440 x 2560, which gives it a pixel density of 534ppi.

Thanks to the fact that it's an AMOLED screen, colors look bright and punchy, while overall contrast is striking. While Samsung fans are used to such visual opulence and we dare say the panel on the S7 is superior, this is arguably the best display to ever grace a BlackBerry device.

Interface and reliability

• Serious security smarts
• Useful pop-up widgets
• Stays close to stock Android

While many Android handset makers are hell-bent on making their own mark on the Android operating system, BlackBerry has shown remarkable restraint with the DTEK60. To the casual observer the user interface looks practically the same as what you'd expect to see on stock Android devices like the Nexus 5X and Google Pixel.

This is most definitely a positive thing; the more modifications a manufacturer makes to the interface, the greater chance there is of bugs and compatibility issues being unwittingly introduced, and the additional time needed to customize the interface means software updates lag behind those seen on Google-branded devices.

Such is BlackBerry's willingness to dance to Google's tune that the DTEK60 doesn't come with custom music and media apps.

Instead, the phone ships with Google Photos and Google Play Music as standard. If you're an existing Android user then you'll likely prefer these apps anyway, and use them over the largely pointless variants which ship on phones from the likes of Samsung, LG and Sony.

Like so many of Google's apps, cloud storage makes these almost indispensable, and when you switch to a new phone you don't have to worry about losing your photos, videos, music or files. By sticking with Google's offerings, BlackBerry has skillfully avoided the needless duplication of features that so often plague Android devices.

While BlackBerry is happy to keep the core interface close to Google's own vision, the company has introduced new ideas of its own which really set the DTEK60 apart from its Android rivals – some of which work better than others.

The most notable has to be the BlackBerry Hub, a unified inbox for all your emails, text messages, tweets, calls, calendar appointments and instant messages.

Designed to look like the Gmail app, this all-in-one option does an excellent job of pulling together all your vital messages in one place, but if you're used to Android's already robust notification system then its value might be slightly diminished.

We personally find it a little overwhelming to see all of these notifications in a single app, but your own experience may vary, especially if you dislike having to hop between applications to respond to alerts.

Interestingly, this isn't totally unique to the DTEK60 or even BlackBerry phones, as it can be downloaded to other Android devices via Google Play.

BlackBerry has pre-loaded some of its own security-conscious apps, which are clearly aimed at business and enterprise users. WatchDox is a secure file-sharing tool with in-depth permission management, while underlying functionality is secured by high-level encryption across instant messaging, email and apps.

The DTEK security app is the perhaps the most visible element of BlackBerry's quest to eradicate any vulnerabilities, and runs in the background at all times, monitoring elements such as app permissions, data encryption, operating system integrity and even the suitability of your screen lock.

Should any area not pass muster, DTEK will warn you of this and encourage you to take action.

Finally, there's BlackBerry Password Keeper, which secures all your precious log-in details using AES-256 encryption and a single master password. In a neat touch you can also write secret notes within the Password Keeper to keep them away from prying eyes.

BlackBerry boasts that the DTEK60 is the most secure Android phone ever made, which is kind of like bragging that you've got the world's best chocolate teapot – Google's operating system doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to overall security, largely thanks to the fact that most Android phones can be rooted for customization and thereby exposed to all kinds of attacks.

Even so, BlackBerry is deadly serious about locking down its phones, and at the time of writing none of its Android devices have been rooted. The DTEK60 is designed to only function if the bootloader remains completely secure, and regular security updates are issued each month.

There's also what BlackBerry calls the "Hardware Root of Trust", with security keys being added to the processor which track, verify, and provision each device. All of this might seem like overkill, but it's important to remember that BlackBerry's focus is on business users who share confidential corporate data.

Elsewhere, BlackBerry has added pop-up widgets to the core Android interface. These work like 3D Touch pop-ups on iOS, but instead of a push you swipe up or down on the app icon.

This opens up a window which shows the available widgets for that application; pick one and the next time you swipe, you'll see the information presented by that widget. It's a great middle ground for those who like to see data at a glance but don't want massive widgets taking up their home screen.

There are also gesture controls, which allow you to open a particular app simply by swiping in a certain direction from the home button, and BlackBerry's own "Intelligent Keyboard", which learns how you type and comes with speedy "swipe to type" input.

After using the keyboard for a while we found ourselves reverting to Google's standard keyboard – available from the Google Play Store for free – but BlackBerry's effort is certainly one of the best custom efforts we've seen in a long time, which is unsurprising when you consider that physical keyboards were its key USP not so long ago.

Finally, we have the Productivity Tab, which sits on the side of the screen and can be opened with a swipe from the edge of the display. From here, you get an overview of your upcoming events, text messages, open tasks and your available contacts.

While it initially seems like a useful feature to have, the longer we spent with the DTEK60 the less we actually used it.

Annoyingly, we only remembered its existence on the numerous times that we accidentally opened the tab when performing other actions. Thankfully, like almost all the additional features BlackBerry has added into this handset, the Productivity Tab can be disabled entirely if you wish.

Movies, music and gaming

• Large, sharp screen is great for films and games
• …but the high resolution can leave games running less smoothly
• Powerful and clear 360-degree stereo sound

The DTEK60's large and striking AMOLED screen is predictably a great platform for watching movies and playing games.

However, its high resolution does mean that certain intense 3D games run less smoothly than on phones like the Xiaomi Mi5, which boasts the same Snapdragon 820 chipset but has a more manageable 1080p screen that places less strain on the internal hardware.

It's by no means a deal-breaker though, and gaming on BlackBerry's blower is still an enjoyable experience.

Audio is a much more agreeable affair, thanks to the DTEK60's unique stereo speaker setup. There's a speaker at the top and bottom of the device, but the grilles which allow the audio to pass out are present on both the front and back of the phone, offering 360-degree sound.

The speakers are powerful and clear, making this a great option for listening to tunes sans headphones.

Thanks to the bundled Waves MaxxAudio app, you can fine-tune the sound by tinkering with variables such as bass and treble, and these alterations carry across the entire interface, not just music playback. The results are best appreciated when using a set of headphones.

Specs and benchmark performance

• High-end specs with performance to match
• Solid benchmark score

The DTEK60 is among the first of BlackBerry's Android-based devices to really boast flagship hardware specifications, and its high-end specs show in the overall performance of the phone.

With Qualcomm's excellent Snapdragon 820 chipset doing the heavy lifting and 4GB of DDR4 RAM keeping things running, the user experience is rarely less than buttery-smooth.

Keeping the operating system close to stock Android will have no doubt helped in this regard, and we never encountered any pauses or stuttering, even when the handset was performing several different processor-intensive tasks at once.

For some unknown reason the Geekbench 4 benchmark refused to work on the DTEK60, but we did get AnTuTu running and it returned an excellent score of 147126, which is in line with other Snapdragon 820-powered devices – in other words, the DTEK60 delivers flagship performance.

Battery life

• 3000mAh battery gives day-long stamina
• It can be fully charged in just over an hour

BlackBerry promises 24 hours of "mixed use" out of the DTEK60's 3000mAh battery, which is a rather vague statement given that everyone's demands are different.

However, in an average day where we replied to emails, surfed the web, played a few games and streamed some music via Spotify, we found that the phone's stamina was more than adequate. In fact, there wasn't a single day where we were in danger of running out of juice before bedtime.

If you're a heavy user then you may find that's not the case, but mercifully the DTEK60 supports Qualcomm's Quick Charge standard, which allows you to grab a few more hours of battery life on just a 15-minute charge. To fully top-up the battery it takes just over an hour.

During our usual video test – where a HD video clip is played for 90 minutes with the volume at maximum and screen brightness set to full – the DTEK60 shed 20% of its battery.

That’s not the best result we’ve seen, with the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge for example losing just 14%, but it beats the 22% drop exhibited by the HTC 10 and the 32% loss shown by the Pixel XL.

Camera

• 21MP camera is best used in manual mode
• 8MP front-facing camera has LED flash for selfies

The DTEK60's 21MP rear-facing camera comes with its own custom app, produced by BlackBerry, which boasts a suite of options including HDR, slow-motion, panorama and manual controls.

It also comes with a "Focus before capture" mode which aims to eradicate blurry, ill-defined images, but comes with a slightly longer delay when taking a snap.

Camera performance is pretty decent, with the DTEK60 being swift to take an image and performing well in illuminated conditions. In low-light it's not quite as adept as phones like the iPhone 7 or Samsung Galaxy S7, and overall image quality doesn't quite match those handsets, either.

Colors often appear washed out and when there's a strong contrast between light and darkness – a building shot against a bright sky, for example – the phone has a worrying habit of oversaturating the lighter area and putting the rest of the picture in darkness.

In almost all cases, using the manual controls is your best bet at getting the ideal shot. Another disappointment is how far the camera sensor sticks out on the back of the device, meaning the phone can't be laid flat on a table without wobbling.

On the front of the BlackBerry DTEK60 you'll find an 8MP snapper complete with an LED "selfie flash", which we imagine is really useful when taking sultry and seductive self-portraits in dark rooms.

The rear-facing camera can record 4K video at 30fps, or 1080p at a smoother 60fps. The selfie cam is capable of capturing 1080p video at 30fps, and both have a video stabilization feature, which aims to reduce the effect of shaking hands.

Camera samples

Verdict

Given that BlackBerry was considered to be on the ropes not so long ago, the DTEK60 is a surprisingly assured release.

It successfully combines an elegant design with powerful hardware, a fantastic screen, largely stock Android and a surfeit of genuinely useful apps, not to mention powerful security features aimed at keeping your data as protected as possible.

32GB of storage should be more than enough for most users, and the ability to boost this with a microSD card is welcome – and not something that all Android flagships offer. The battery is large and can be charged quickly, and the stereo speakers are powerful and offer 360-degree audio.

Perhaps the biggest let-down is the camera, which, while being an improvement over traditional BlackBerry snappers, isn't as accomplished as those seen on other phones in this price bracket.

We also struggled with the placement of the power button, which seems to have been positioned exactly where our fingers would never naturally sit during use.

Who’s this for?

Given the BlackBerry branding, it should come as no surprise that the DTEK60 has a strong business and security focus. If you value your privacy and security, then there's really no better Android option in this price range.

Of course, if you pick Android because you like customizing the interface, gaining root access and flashing new ROM images, then you'll almost certainly want to avoid the DTEK60; this is as locked-down as Google's operating system gets, so tinkering is almost entirely out of the picture.

Should you buy it?

If you're kept up at night by the fear of people hacking into your phone and gaining access to your personal data, then the DTEK60 is the answer to your prayers.

Regular software updates, super-secure features and high-level encryption keep BlackBerry's handset rock-solid, but remarkably the company has achieved this without layering an obtrusive interface on top of Google's core Android software.

With a SIM-free price of $499/£475 (around AU$650), the DTEK60 undercuts many Android phones with very similar hardware specifications, making it a solid choice if you're feeling flush but still appreciate a bargain.

The BlackBerry DTEK60 is a strong Android flagship - arguably the company's best, but there are a number of other great high-end phones. These are three of the best alternatives you might want to consider.

Samsung Galaxy S7

2016's Android handset to beat, the Galaxy S7 uses the same Snapdragon 820 chipset as the DTEK60 (at least in the US) and also uses an AMOLED screen – albeit one which is slightly smaller.

It has a waterproof casing, which BlackBerry's phone lacks, along with a far better camera and a more premium build, but also costs a little bit more SIM-free, though you can often find it reduced now, bringing the S7 more in line with the DTEK60’s pricing.

• Read our full Samsung Galaxy S7 review

iPhone 7

If you're not tied to Android then Apple's latest and greatest is perhaps worth a look. It's water resistant for the first time ever and boasts a great camera, powerful internals and a super-fast fingerprint scanner.

Thanks to Apple's locked-down OS, it's also more secure than most Android phones, DTEK60 aside. If you're shopping on a budget then cost will be an issue, as the iPhone 7 is a lot more expensive than BlackBerry's device.

• Read our full iPhone 7 review

Google Pixel

Rocking the latest Snapdragon 821 chipset and Android 7.0, the Google Pixel is the replacement for the long-running Nexus line of handsets. Constructed with Google's input and boasting build quality to rival the iPhone 7, it's one of the best Android phones money can buy.

That brings with it a high price though, with the Pixel costing more than the DTEK60 (and if you want the 5.5-inch Pixel XL the price goes up even higher).

• Read our full Google Pixel review

First reviewed: November 2016

Last we saw of the upcoming BlackBerry DTEK60, we got ourselves a glimpse of just about everything there was to know about the Android handset - save the price.

That may no longer be the case, as it appears the DTEK60, formerly codenamed BlackBerry Argon, will retail for $499.99 (about £410/AU$660). This price comes from a leaked pre-order page from B&H Photo that has since been taken down.

In addition to a price, the leaked retailer posting also confirms some of the leaked specs we saw last month, including a 5.5-inch QHD display, fingerprint scanner, 32GB internal memory, and 4GB RAM. 

This information in turn also corroborates trusted leaker Evan Blass’ original reveal back in July, which included the same specifications, an October release window for the DTEK60, and even the next step in BlackBerry's smartphone-making plans.

Argon, or are gone?

According to past leaks, the DTEK60 follows second in a three-act effort to get BlackBerry back into the handset game following the discontinuation of its Classic line and low sales of the well-reviewed, but costly, BlackBerry Priv.

The first volley in BlackBerry’s attempted comeback, codenamed BlackBerry Neon, debuted this summer as the BlackBerry DTEK50 for $299/£275 (about AU$390). 

While we appreciated the DTEK50’s consumer-friendly price, the quality was also affected - something we expect the DTEK60 to improve upon, given the nearly doubled price.

The final piece of the trilogy is the BlackBerry Mercury - a yet-to-be revealed phone expected out in Q1 of 2017. 

The main draw of the Mercury is the reported return of BlackBerry's classic clickety-clack keyboard and a hearty 3400mAh battery - something the on-the-go business types that make up BlackBerry’s typical target audience might appreciate. 

• Speaking of Android, here's all there is to know about Nougat

Via Pocket-lint, Android Authority

BlackBerry dropped a huge bombshell yesterday announcing it would no longer make phones. Instead, the struggling Canadian firm said that it would begin outsourcing hardware development to third parties.

The news led many fans to to mourn their cherished BlackBerries and feared the worst for the iconic BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard. However, BlackBerry CEO John Chen put those fears to rest today by confirming that the physical QWERTY keyboard would live on.

"We need to sit down with each [company] to work on a portfolio," said Chen speaking with Business News Network. "[QWERTY] will continue on but we'll be very selective."

But will anyone actually care about BlackBerry retaining its iconic physical keyboard? Digital keyboards are now so good that many people can type on them without issue. It took some getting used to, especially with trusting auto correct, but a physical keyboard on a phone seems like a relic of the past.

"For those coming from fully touchscreen devices the keyboard on the Priv will likely feel outdated and clunky," said our very own John McCann in his BlackBerry Priv review. "The keys are small, and I continually found myself hitting the wrong letters."

There are plenty of third-party keyboard apps for both Android and iOS for users to choose from. Swiftkey is great for those who want intelligent typing. Google Gboard is great for iOS users who want quick access to search results and animated GIFs.

• The world's most secure Android smartphone: BlackBerry DTEK50 review