The return of BlackBerry!

Brand News #8

QWERTY keyboard based smartphones were a radical thing of the past and BlackBerry, the Apple of yesteryear's when it comes to this particular form factor is making a come back with the KeyOne. After taking a long time to survive the onslaught of Apple and Android devices, BlackBerry is finally back in the smartphone landscape. But let's not jump the gun just yet. 

Optiemus Infracom, a company that has rights to design, manufacture and sell BlackBerry phones in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal has launched the model KeyOne at a price of Rs. 39,990. It will be rolled out in India on August 8th, 2017 exclusively through Amazon. 

Now you would think that this isn't a BlackBerry phone at all. That thought is quickly dismissed when you take a look at the KeyOne. This model marks the return of the QWERTY keyboard which BB was once very famous for. This is in fact the stand out feature that distinguishes it from all other smartphones available in the market these days. That's not all. To keep it contemporary, the KeyOne also sports a 4.5" display at a resolution of 1620X1080 pixels. 

As far as the features go, the Indian model comes with 4GB RAM, Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor (which does the job in the popular Redmi Note 4 models), 3505mAh battery, 12 MP rear and 8 MP front camera's and all of which is run by the highly customizable Android 7.1.1. The KeyOne is also high on security with the DTEK app that tracks data encryption, app permissions and overall integrity of the smartphone.

Only time will tell whether our thumbs which are so used to typing on glass screens will be receptive once again of the "physical" QWERTY keyboard. With the popular Redmi and other smartphone models selling like hot cakes at half the price of the KeyOne, it is hard to make any judgement's as to how the model will survive the highly competitive pricing prevalent in the market. 

I feel that the KeyOne would be found appealing only by the last few surviving fans of BlackBerry. The one's who are still holding out by using the now outdated classic or passport models.