The Black Edition of the BlackBerry KEYone is slated for release in Canada later this month, independent of mobile network carriers for a retail price of CAD $799. TCL Communication, which manufactures the smartphone, announced on Thursday that the BlackBerry KEYone Black Edition will be up for grabs through Ingram Micro’s distribution partners in Canada including Amazon, Walmart and Staples next week, though the exact date for when the device can be purchased will depend on individual distributors.
The BlackBerry KEYone Black Edition retains the same design, key features and most specifications that shipped with the original version of the handset in May of this year, including a 4.5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1620 x 1080, protected by the Corning Gorilla Glass 4 for impact and scratch resistance. The Black Edition of the BlackBerry KEYone comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable native storage, while the regular model sports 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable internal storage. This handset is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor coupled with the Qualcomm Adreno 506 GPU for graphics performance. The phone also boasts a 12-megapixel rear shooter equipped with Sony’s IMX378 camera sensor and an 8-megapixel front camera. A 3,505mAh battery keeps the device running for roughly 26 hours and it can re-charged up to 50 percent within 36 minutes, TCL Communication claims, thanks to Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology built into the phone. The BlackBerry KEYone black version runs on the Android 7.0 Nougat mobile operating system, with the phone also slated for an upgrade to the Android 8.0 Oreo version as confirmed by Google recently.
Other features of the handset include the Smart Keyboard with which you can customize up to 52 keyboard shortcuts and gain access to various apps and contacts quickly by designating each letter key to a specific function. The manufacturer also incorporated a fingerprint sensor into the space bar of the phone’s keyboard for an additional level of security. Speaking of security, the phone also ships with BlackBerry’s DTEK system that is designed to monitor the security status of the device 24/7 and safeguard the apps as well as the operating system. DTEK works by warning you about potential risks to your privacy and informing you about several methods that you can take to pre-empt any security issues.