Canadian smartphone manufacturer Blackberry has launched its new Android smartphone, the BlackBerry KEYone Limited Edition Black, in India on Tuesday at an event in New Delhi. The handset, which made its debut at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 in Barcelona earlier this year, is expected to take on premium handsets from the likes of Samsung, Apple and OnePlus in the increasingly competitive Indian smartphone market.
The BlackBerry KEYone Limited Edition Black, which is priced at Rs. 39,990, boasts a physical QWERTY keyboard with a fingerprint sensor on the spacebar and capacitive touch sensors on the entire keyboard for scrolling. The phone also comes with a feature called "flick type," which allows users to flick predicted words onto the screen as they type. Another intereting feature is that every physical key on the KEYone can be customized.
The BlackBerry KEYone comes with a 4.5-inch IPS LCD screen (1620 x 1080) while its aluminium-alloy shell on the back offers a premium feel. The handset features a 12MP rear auto-focus large pixel camera with Sony IMX378. When it comes to the front camera, the phone sports an 8MP snapper with a wide angle field of view and full HD video-recording ability.
Under the hood, the BlackBerry KEYone features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB inbuilt storage that is expandable up to 256 GB via microSD card and Android 7.1 Nougat. BlackBerry KEYone is also the first ever BB smartphone with dual SIM card support.
The phone also sports a 3,505mAh battery, which is claimed to be the biggest battery for a BlackBerry phone to date. According to the company, 50 percent of the phone's battery gets charged in just 36 minutes, thanks to the Quick Charge capability. In addition, the BlackBerry KEYone is also claimed to be the most secure Android smartphone with BlackBerry security software.
BlackBerry KEYone Limited Edition Black will be available exclusively on Amazon India August 8 onwards. Buyers get 75GB worth free data on Vodafone's network. The data comes with 3 months validity and applicable for both postpaid and prepaid customers.
Let's have a look at the BlackBerry KEYone specifications:
| Model | BlackBerry KEYOne |
| Display | 4.5-inch IPS LCD screen with 1620x1080p resolution
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| OS | Android 7.1 Nougat |
| Processor | 2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor |
| GPU | 650MHz Adreno 506 |
| RAM | 4GB |
| Storage | 64GB flash, expandable up to 2TB |
| Camera |
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| Battery | 3,505mAh; 4.4V non-removable Lithium Ion with Quick Charge v3.0 technology ( can power the phone from zero to 50% charge in 36 minutes) |
| Add-ons | Fingerprint sensor, On-scree/ white LED indicator, Type-C USB v3.1 port, Bluetooth v4.2 LE, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n; dual-band: 2.4GHz&5GHz), FM radio, NFC (Near Field Communication); proprietary BlackBerry security softwares |
| Dimensions | 149.3 x 72.5 x 9.4 mm |
| Weight | 180g |
