The BlackBerry KEYone was announced by BlackBerry today, which is essentially the BlackBerry Mercury that was teased by BlackBerry during CES 2017, but it comes with a different name. BlackBerry did not share any specific info about this phone back in January, but they shared everything today during their press conference at MWC 2017. Check out the official announcement and a dedicated specifications article if you’re interested, as we’re here to check out the design of this handset up close and personal, read on.
The BlackBerry KEYone comes with a metal frame, its power / lock, volume up and volume down key are placed on the right, while the phone’s SIM card tray can be found on the left. A Type-C USB port is located on the bottom of this smartphone, and is flanked by the phone’s speakers. On the top of the device lies a 3.5mm headphone jack, and, of course, a noise cancelling microphone. The device looks different, that’s for sure, and it comes with both a physical QWERTY keyboard, and a 4.5-inch display. In between the keyboard and the display, you’ll notice three capacitive keys, back, home and overview (multitasking) buttons. On the back side of the device, BlackBerry opted to include a grippy material which seems to be rubber, or maybe silicone, either way, it’s quite grippy, that’s for sure. Company’s logo is also placed on the back of the BlackBerry KEYone, and its main camera protrudes a bit.
The BlackBerry KEYone sports a 4.5-inch 1620 x 1080 display, along with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable native storage. The device is fueled by the Snapdragon 625 64-bit octa-core SoC, and packs in a rather beefy 3,505mAh battery, especially if you consider that the battery is powering a 4.5-inch display here. A 12-megapixel shooter is located on the back of the phone, and an 8-megapixel snapper can be found on its front side. Android 7.1 Nougat comes pre-installed on the BlackBerry KEYone, and you’ll get a number of BlackBerry apps here as well, including BlackBerry Keyboard,, BlackBerry Password Keeper, DTEK by BlackBerry, and so on. The device will go on sale in April, and will cost €599 / $549, or less, said the company. You can check out the device yourself by taking a look at the gallery down below where you’ll find a number of our hands-on images from MWC 2017.
