TCL initially unveiled the BlackBerry KEYone at CES 2017, and then again at Mobile World Congress in February.
After both “unveilings”, the device was expected to ship in April but BlackBerry CEO John Chen today revealed that the KEYone will now not ship until at least late May.
During the company’s fiscal Q4 2017 earnings call, Chen revealed that the phone will ship sometime after May.
He added that TCL will start producing the device at the end of April.
Chen said,
“We just launched two phones, or we helped our partners launch two phones. One in Indonesia and that one is shipping already. The second one, that TCL announced at Mobile World Congress which is the physical keyboard on an Android, that one is not going to be slated to ship until probably the May timeframe.”
“I think the first manufacturing production run is at the end of April. So the product looks pretty good, but the worldwide availability is going to be later than May,”
BB Merah Putih have already showed TCL how a launch should actually be done, as the BlackBerry Aurora has been announced and is now available to users.
Of course, Samsung has also announced the Galaxy S8 and S8+, with the flagship device immediately up for pre-order with availability from April 28th, with some retailers making the device available from April 20th.
To make any impact, it would have been beneficial if TCL could have had the BlackBerry KEYone out and available before the S8 was even revealed. How the delay will impact any sales of the physical keyboard smartphone remains to be seen.
Out of the box, the KEYone runs Android 7.1 – giving users access to the entire Google Play store and apps – and will receive Google security patch updates. It comes loaded with BlackBerry Hub, bringing all your messages into one consolidated place; including emails, texts and messages from any social media account. Another benefit of BlackBerry Hub, is the ability to manage multiple email accounts without switching between apps, with support for Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, Microsoft Exchange accounts, and many other IMAP and POP3 email providers.
It includes Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology, making it possible for the 3505 mAh battery on the KEYone – the largest ever in a BlackBerry device, to receive up to 50 percent charge in roughly 36 minutes. And for when you only have a few moments to grab a fast charge, BlackBerry’s Boost can turbo charge your battery to get you the most charge with the limited time you have.
On the left edge is the BlackBerry Convenience Key that can be customized for different operations. In between the display and QWERTY keyboard are the three capacitive navigation buttons for back, home, and multi-tasking (from left to right).
Connectivity options include 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS, 3.5mm Audio port, and USB Type-C port. With the NFC and fingerprint sensor, the KeyOne can be used for making payments using the Android Pay.
The BlackBerry KEYone will be priced at or under €599 EUR/£499 GBP/$549 USD.
BlackBerry KEYone Specs
| Operating system | Android 7.1 Nougat |
| Display | 4.5-inch, 1620×1080 IPS LCD 434ppi 3:2 Aspect Ratio |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 Quad-core 2.00GHz Adreno 506 GPU |
| RAM | 3GB |
| Storage | 32GB |
| Expandable | microSD up to 2TB |
| Rear Camera | 12MP (1.55 micron) f/2.0, PDAF dual-tone LED flash HDR, 4K, 30fps |
| Front Camera | 8MP f/2.2 1.12-micron pixels Selfie flash 1080p/30 video |
| Battery | 3505 mAh non-removable |
| Charging | Quick Charge 3.0 USB-C |
| Water resistance | No |
| Security | DTEK security suite FIPS 140-2 Full Disk Encryption Android For Work, Google Play for Work |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11ac, 5GHz, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, NFC GPS, GLONASS NFC FM Radio |
| Network (NA GSM) | LTE Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/13/17/19/20/28/29/30 TD-LTE Band 38/39/40/41 |
| Network (NA CDMA) | LTE Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/12/13/20/25/26/28/29/30 TD-LTE Band 41 CDMA BC 0/1/10 |
| Network (EMEA) | LTE Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/13/17/20/28 TD-LTE Band 38,40 |
| Dimensions | 149.1 mm x 72.39 mm x 9.4 mm |
| Weight | 180 grams |
