BlackBerry Keyone: Yay or Nay?

[Vinyadan]

I am looking for a new phone, and what I'd like are a long-lasting battery, a software that gets updated, and robustness. Since I use my phone to write fairly long texts, and I almost never use it to watch videos, the physical keyboard sounds interesting, although I have never tried one on a smartphone. Do you think that it would be the right phone for me? Do you have other recommendations?

[Knaight]

I don't know the phone, but can confirm that physical keyboards on phones can be really nice to have.

[factotum]

As I understand it, the battery life on the Key is still only a couple of days due to the big, power hungry screen...if you really want a long-lasting battery you'd want the modern equivalent of a Nokia e63, but I don't believe such a thing exists, sadly. I still use an e63 and I wouldn't ever want a replacement that didn't have a full physical keyboard on it, because they are *so* good for texting.

[137beth]

You should also probably consider the Blackberry Key2, which is this year's updated model. It's the same size and shape as the previous one, but has an updated system-on-chip which is more energy efficient.


As I understand it, the battery life on the Key is still only a couple of days due to the big, power hungry screen...

Not really. The Blackberry KeyOne and Key2 both have screen resolutions of 1620 by 1080, which is lower than most mid-range and flagship Android phones nowadays, and the Snapdragon 660 SoC is very energy efficient. The folks over at GSMArena found (https://www.gsmarena.com/blackberry_key2-review-1788p3.php) that the battery could last for about 31 hours of talking, or 12 hours of web browsing, or 12:30 of full-screen video. That's on the good side for a smartphone, although it isn't the best. And obviously, those numbers are going to vary depending on what exactly you are doing with the phone (I can think of some websites that would probably drain the battery a lot faster).

[Vinyadan]

The Key2 is the main reason why I could afford the KeyOne, since it sank its price around here. In the end, I bought it. I am happy with it; it's still at android 7, but an update to 8 has been promised (by the way, am I the only person who feels like vomiting when hearing the saccharinous names of Android versions?). It has a lot of features that I have to learn, but the most immediate and probably useful one is the ability to add shortcuts to the keyboad buttons. That's a lot of shortcuts, and, if I understood correctly, you can have them do different things in different programs. Battery life is very good, but the battery is still new, so it might have something to do with a comparison to my old machine. I did not test its solidity, yet :smallbiggrin: The camera is silent, which is something I appreciate a lot: I don't like disturbing people. I still have some doubts about the concept of the most secure smartphone in the consumer market being made in China, something about which reviewers don't seem to have written anything.

[Vinyadan]

A couple more nifty features: the radio chip is activated, so you don't need Internet to listen to the radio. The phone also saves the history of copied notes: something I wish computers did by default.

[Mando Knight]

A couple more nifty features: the radio chip is activated, so you don't need Internet to listen to the radio.

A lot of Android phones have an FM tuner, you just need an app to interface with it--though most such apps also require you to plug in headphones, since they use the wire as an FM antenna.

[sktarq]

I am looking for a new phone, and what I'd like are a long-lasting battery, a software that gets updated, and robustness. Since I use my phone to write fairly long texts, and I almost never use it to watch videos, the physical keyboard sounds interesting, although I have never tried one on a smartphone......

Since I use my phone in a similar way and own a Keyone (which replaced my Q10 in January (I like keyboards)) I would say I have been generally pleased.

Sometimes updates to android leave things wonky for a day of two until anther update happens which fixes it (usually just apps freezing up and rebooting) but and I find the new Notes app that comes with it inferior to the older versions (oh hey look an app store to fix that)

Very much less impressed by the security over older crackberry models but still better than most.

Also the Square-clear all to fully shut down apps has proven to be a battery saver.

[Summer Lamb]

My friend had phone like this, and for him did not comfortable because of size, but for text and mail i guess its nice :smallsmile:

[georgestawn]

I don't get Blackberries these days. We've got iPhone, many great Android options, so what's the point? the Keyone doesn't even survive the bend test, the screen falls out. what a mess

[Vinyadan]

In the meantime, the Oreo update has really been released, which I wasn't really expecting (8.1). I'm not sure about what it adds, though.

Overall, there isn't a massive difference with other phones, but the KeyOne lets me do the things I want to do more comfortably, which is good enough for me. I still love the physical keyboard shortcuts, though.

About the bend test, that problem was apparently solved a long time ago:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J1UgMAPNtw

Of course, you still would need to check when the phone was produced to be sure to get one of the newer ones. I personally wasn't even aware of the issue, so I have no idea of whether my phone is one of the good ones. However, if you somehow bend the phone to the point of deforming the chassis, I don't think that the screen falling off means too much: that phone's life is likely already over.


I still have some doubts about the concept of the most secure smartphone in the consumer market being made in China, something about which reviewers don't seem to have written anything.

And now we have the Supermicro subcontractor-installed microchip scandal. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies