The BlackBerry KEYone Black Edition is soon going to make its way towards certain retail channels around the world and earlier this week, the Canadian smartphone maker launched a new YouTube ad demonstrating the handset’s capabilities when paired with a vehicle through Android Auto. Nothing particularly unseen has been presented in the latest video, however, it reminds users that the Black Edition arrives with double the amount of on-board storage and more RAM compared to the standard BlackBerry KEYone.
To be clear, Android Auto is available on both the standard BlackBerry KEYone and the Black Edition, however since the latter model comes with 4GB of RAM as opposed to 3GB, it should arguably offer an improved user experience. In addition, while the standard model is equipped with 32GB of on-board memory, the Black Edition conceals 64GB of storage, which is expandable by up to an additional 256GB via microSD in either case. Other hardware details remain unchanged, meaning that the device houses a 4.5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1620 x 1080 pixels, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 system-on-chip featuring eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores and an Adreno 506 graphics chip. Both smartphone models accommodate a 12-megapixel main camera with HDR, phase detection autofocus, an f/2.0 aperture, and a dual-LED flash, as well as an 8-megapixel front-facing sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and 1080p video recording capabilities. The device is powered by a 3,505mAh battery and takes advantage of Quick Charge, a USB Type-C reversible connector, NFC, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. One of the unique features setting this BlackBerry device apart from other Android-powered smartphones is the physical QWERTY keyboard which doubles as a touchpad, and conceals a fingerprint reader inside the space bar.
The BlackBerry KEYone Black Edition is expected to launch before the end of September, but pricing details are scarce. Also worth noting is that AT&T launched the Space Black BlackBerry KEYone earlier this month but although this particular variant closely resembles the Black Edition, in actuality it makes use of the same amount of RAM and storage as the standard model. AT&T offers the Space Black flavor in the US exclusively for the price of $499.99 outright or for 30 monthly payments worth $16.67 each.