Blackberry Key2 Review! [After 3 Weeks] By Max Lee

Hi guys so after using the BlackBerry key to for three weeks straight I think I can give you a good review. So let's go ahead and take a look. Baby are guys if you're watching this video, you probably interested on a smartphone with the keyboard, there's not a ton of Android smartphones. You can buy these days that actually come with a physical keyboard or any kind of smartphone. Alright, my first every smartphone is actually the HTC 8125 I think I bought this around 10 years ago. I don't want to make this about this phone I'll actually have a review of it, but this has a flip-out keyboard, a full QWERTY keyboard.

You could tie really, really fast on this. This was actually my very first smartphone that I bought. That's actually smart had a keyboard. It even has a mouse pad a function buttons. Actually, this phone is out of this world.

It's even got a dedicated camera button. Ir sensor, hey it even has an S Pen. This thing was way ahead of its time. I thought we'll get into that. So that's my first smartphone and the reason why I bought this.

Obviously, because I wanted to type faster, I think back, then the touchscreen was so laggy. You actually needed a hardware, keyboard and I think that's where blackberry really shines, because back then touchscreens were very, very laggy. If you grew up with phones like this, and now we have big smartphones like the Galaxy Note 8, the Galaxy Note series I love this phone, not because the screen is big, but the screen is so big that typing on this is really easy, and I can type really, really fast. So the biggest question do you actually need a physical keyboard? I would say this is definitely not for everybody. There's a lot of people who grew up with physical keyboards, like I, did and grew up with the smartphone technology.

There's a lot of young people that never ever use a physical keyboard on a smartphone. If you're in that second boats, you've never actually used a physical keyboard. There's going to be a very steep learning curve in just trying to get used to the keyboard, and you know what, unless you use this every single day, I would say for at least a few months your. How can I be able to take advantage? What blackberry has to offer I know this because when I had the BlackBerry 88 30 about 10 years ago. I could type really, really fast, but that did not happen overnight.

It took me several months to get used to the keyboard and what really happens? I will do a quick test here and what happens is, as you use the BlackBerry more often, especially on a word like pretty, where I've typed, p r e t t y, you see how r ET t y these are all four letters that are very connected together and over time. What happens is that you get very used to it, and you could literally type this just by feel it is really hard to explain if you ever not used a blackberry before. Let me do a quick test here and go as fast as I can and see what kind of score I can get here. Okay, you know, those scores are pretty abysmal. Alright I can average about 30 to 40 on a touchscreen, even as a previous blackberry user, because I haven't used a blackberry for about 10 years.

I think it's actually going to take me another few months to actually get used to it, but I think once I get used to the keyboard. I'm going to be able to type really fast, but I want to show you some problems with the keyboard itself and the real problem is actually whenever you have to do capital, the shift key for doing capital is over here. So when you're doing letters on this side, you're going to have to bring your right finger all the way here and type capital e. Alright, that's where it slows me down the most. Also, whenever I have to type numbers off to hold down the Alt key like that, and also the period I'll have to hold down the key like that.

Alright, I, don't quite exactly remember how the 88 30 was, but I remember. It was a lot easier than this. So that's part of the problem not on how I need to type fast. Now, if blackberry can somehow solve the capitalization issues, the number issues make it more ergonomically easier to type. Then I think we have a winner here, but the keyboard right now it is just two cramps- is very, very narrow, I'm five foot, nine I, probably have slightly larger than average hands.

I have some calluses from playing a lot of golf. You can see there. These are like literally 30-year-old calluses I've been getting since I. Was young I find that the keyboard is too narrow, alright um? How would narrow is it mean in terms of how why this keyboard is I? Think that's also a huge problem, because I would say the one plus six is an arrow. I would go for comfortable typing, it's already narrower than that and look at the keyboard real estate.

How wide it is. Alright, then, how tall it is versus the node 8, and it's very short and narrow. Alright I'm just being painfully honest here, most new flagships, these days, even the smaller, let's say s 8, or s, 9 right, even the s 8 will give you much bigger space to type. The width is about the same, but you're still going to be able to customize the keyboard up, make it much taller, so I think the biggest problem with the BlackBerry key 2 is not the keyboard itself, but the size of the keyboard. This is made for people with small hands.

It is definitely not made for people with large hands because. Even for me, I feel very cramped. I'm thinking, if blackberry wanted to hit home run, which I really want them to do, is for them to make 2 different sizes. Just like how Samsung does it that's why they have the s9 +. If you have small hands, go with that's not.

If you have large hands, go with the s9 + boy, he no date in comparison. Blackberry only offers you one size, so I think that's a huge mistake there and if you guys are listening at blackberry, guys just make two different versions, and you will sell a ton more go. Even look at iPhone copied Samsung and mate iPhone excel alright iPhone, 7, plus 10 plus I'm, not very familiar with iPhone, but I know they copied Samsung made bigger phone. Alright, so I honestly feel like this is a very small phone in comparison to these smartphone standards right now. If they simply made it slightly wider or slightly bigger, it would hit home run now this size might be perfect for you all I can tell you is go, try yourself, I think they have it at Best Buy so go try.

It yourself go try typing on it, see if you're comfortable with it- and you know this could be the perfect size, but for the rest of us who likes to use phablet bigger size. Phones like no date, that's 9, plus you're going to be disappointed simply because it's just soon narrow I just want to point that out all right, but one good thing: I realized. While using the BlackBerry I'm, especially when I'm walking my ROG I, let's say with one plus six, usually I'm walking my ROG I got my phone in one hand, and I'm gonna, try to start a periscope or something and I only have one hand to type, so I'm going to go here and say: I'm gonna, try typing in here hello there. That doesn't seem like a lot of problems, because my elbow is resting on the desk. Now, if I'm free handing if it's a lot harder and every time I press a letter, there's not really something to anchor on and something that's really helped with the BlackBerry.

Is that every time I type something you have an anchor you can use the keyboard itself because there are angles you can use it as an anchor point and type one handed without dropping your phone. Hopefully not so someone asked me if you could type with one hand on the BlackBerry, eight key to MU shorthand and let me go and demonstrate let's go ahead and just type something. My name is Marie, alright, so I'm going to type my and a whoop and an is max. All right, it's not perfect all right, but um. It is a lot easier than touchscreen.

One thing: I do really like about the BlackBerry key to the keyboard, will light up at night, which is very nice I, find that really nice at night. You don't have to look at that bright LCD. You can clearly see the letters without adding glare in super darkness. Alright, do you really want to talk about the size of the keyboard? But you know what, when I buy phones, I buy phones that I could type fast on, because I'm a keyboard warrior and if you're a keyboard warrior? You know you want a phone that you could type fast, I'm, not saying that you can't tie fast on this, but if you do have large hands, if you're used to typing on larger devices, even with a keyboard, it might not help so do are done your own research before buying go, try the keyboard before you buy it, and even though it does take a quite a time to get used to the keyboard, you know you can sort of tell if it's cramped or not and I, don't know from day one. The keyboard just didn't seem as big as the one I used on a blackberry before, but I'm going to keep using my blackberry, q2 and I'll have another review three months to Surat Matt, but right now, I'm averaging about at best about 30 words per minute on the BlackBerry key to maybe a little higher on the touchscreen I'm.

Almost there I just know that if the keyboard is just a little, bigger I could go 40 words per minute, no problem or even 50. So the only real reason you should buy this phone. This is the keyboard right. The keyboard it I want a quick Korean lesson: how to say keyboard in Korean accents key: oh dude keyboard ooh, all right. There you go even if you didn't buy a blackberry.

You learn something new by watching my channel all right, let's go home to the next topic here. Let's talk about the design, yeah I know we talked about design many times, but this phone is very well-built all metal unibody. You know sort of boxy. It is one of those rare smartphones. You don't need to use a case.

Alright, the screen is protected by this lip. That's formed all right, there's a small amount of gap, that's formed when you drop your phone between the display which helps it protect the screen. This is a very durable phone in terms of bezels. You got that much crush zone, I hate it before he hits the display. I actually really dig the build.

It is built like a tank. I'm. Sorry really like it now, the screen is only 4.5 inches long. That's not gonna! Let you win any contests. If you want a long display, this is not gonna.

Give it to you if you want to watch like Netflix YouTube videos in landscape mode. This is not 2018 guys. This is a four point. Five-inch screen on a device that's much longer, so I know it's tough to do maybe for the next version. Blackberry has to make this a flip-out keyboard, or maybe even have a landscape.

I really love my Epic 4G Touch, because it's landscape right. Let me go ahead and type something for you, hello, after blackberry, I moved on to the Palm Pre, which was okay, that was still portrait, and then I moved to I. Think the next end. The last physical keyboard I've used, is actually this. This phone here and I really dig this keyboard.

I know this is not blackberry style. If you put the keyboard landscape, blackberry can also become a gamer's phone. Let me show you an example of that. So let's say you want to play Minecraft and if the keyboard was on the bottom, you'd be able to use the ASD um aw SD to go forward backwards, left and right, but unfortunately for most games, um that you could really take advantage of by having a physical keyboard they're all in landscape I, don't know if you guys ever played Minecraft on your smartphone, but um. The controls are just junk, but if you could use your keyboard, it would make it so awesome.

Another game that would be very good, for this would be like something like pub G, because most games that require better controls other than using the touchscreen. They all run in landscape. I. Think having this option would make it perfect, because all of these keys actually work just fine without setting up anything special. They all work out of the box.

It just blackberries, put the keyboard over here, Y M, you will notice, you can actually control everything using the keyboard. Well, you know what you can use it as a touchscreen, that's kind of cool, oh wow, when I flip it this way, oh my god, so cool. Alright, sorry, you know what let me take that back, because you can use a keyboard as a touchpad. This actually works quite well. Now here's the thing I try to do that on Minecraft.

It doesn't work, it's not compatible, but I would really like to see. Maybe another version of blackberry I mean they have all the resources to make something like this possible on this, especially the younger generation that play a lot of games. Having something like this flip out, it's going to allow you to use a full screen and also have a full keyboard. That's much easier to use. I mean, let's just imagine these both had the same specs.

Let's say this had the latest Snapdragon processor, you know everything the same, which one would pick I mean. I would definitely pick this one, and this just simply is a good idea and I. Don't know why companies stopped making it. This is a galaxy Epic, 4G Touch. This is actually Samsung's, first or second iteration, but only the Sprint version of the galaxy phone had a keyboard that could have been why, but I don't know why BlackBerry couldn't do this all right.

I know: blackberry is known for a portrait keyboard, but they're masters of keyboards make something like this. Every single millennial in America will buy this I'm saying blackberry. Maybe it's time to innovate and I know. This is really mainly for the business market but open up and make something like this, and you know what having something like this would be. My dream phone, because you're going to be able to type fast, enjoy your full screen and also play games.

So yeah blackberry, I, just give you like million-dollar idea. If you guys do make that phone make sure to send me some bitcoins, or you can send Dogecoins ? I love, Doge, okay, let's talk about the camera again. If you need a decent camera, this will give you decent shots, but the front-facing camera is not very good at focusing, especially if you get too close to your subject. It'll just simply blur it out. You have to actually hold it, at least on the arm's length.

Otherwise, this is not going to focus. So for those of you take a lot of selfies, this could be a problem, especially for the ladies all right, maybe you're meeting somebody famous in New York City, you pop your phone out right next to your idol, take a photo, and it's blurry. This is a huge problem. All right, I got this phone for free blackberry, sent it to me, but I'm always gonna, give you my honest opinions and the front-facing camera focus it's just like from a third-world country, man why they even do this yo who's. The camera engineer, who put this crappy focus on the front camera.

It is really, really horrible. There may be a way to fix with software, so we'll see or in terms of the back camera. The back camera itself is actually pretty good. Quality is very good in brights, bright, light situations, low light performance is nowhere near flagships again. That's where you're gonna really see the difference between a very good flagship versus like a budget Android phone, but in terms of the camera, the verse not bad.

So you know you get some decent bouquet close-up. Shots can be very, very good, but camera obviously needs more work. I, don't think blackberry ever intended to have a good camera, especially recording videos in 4k. You have no stabilization, you're, not gonna, be able to really use it, and even in 1080p stabilizes, pretty horrible. So mags is blackberry, good for anything on the camera or if you take a lot of selfies, that is very important to you.

This is probably not going to cut it or maybe carry two phones, or maybe you carry your DSLR everywhere. If you need video camera, this is not really going to work. For example, your daughter is going to be born next month, and you use this video camera, and I'm telling you from experience of having a daughter, you're gonna, be shaking like mad. Give me. Oh my god, you know what, but I probably wouldn't want to use a smartphone camera anyways.

Are you the back camera in good lighting conditions? Good photos? Is it that's all you need. The camera will work out for you, but in low-light is not gonna. Be that good. You can always pick up like an OG pixel. The original pixel for, like I, don't know like 200 bucks, buy a use phone for like a hundred bucks.

You know, and that will outperform a lot of the flagships out right now. Anyways might make sense to actually carry two phones. That is another reason why I always carry two phones, so yeah the camera needs work. If anybody tells you, this has a very good camera in comparison to anything. That's out right now, they're lying to you.

Alright, this doesn't come anywhere close to the 1 plus 6, no date or even last year's s8, or even this three-year-old Nexus 6p takes better photos than the Motorola. Sorry, blackberry, alright in terms of performance, the key to runs snapdragon 616, which is basically the slower version, a Snapdragon is putting out, but will give you better battery life and that's the reason why BlackBerry chose this one and two benchmarks you get about 140,000 high, which is pretty respectable store. Now this phone is less than 1080p resolution, which means is not going to need all that horsepower all right, but obviously one of the benefits you're going to get very battery life very long battery life all day um, you could literally type on this all day. Have the screen on all day and the battery will keep blasting all day. Alright, you will not have a problem with battery life.

The 3500 William hour battery I've had zero issues. This phone actually last longer than any of my other phones, which is good blackberry, focuses on the keyboard. A lot of people want to type all day so longer battery life right, no problems. Their speakers are very loud. No problem there are phone calls.

There are some extra nifty features, for example, let's say maybe you're tracking your bitcoins on blocked all to app on the airplane, and perhaps you don't want everyone to see how many bitcoins you have maybe you're a Bitcoin mailing there. Then you go ahead and turn on privacy shade. This is actually a great way to hide your portfolio but still be able to check your stuff in public. So I think this nifty feature is pretty good and also there is an option right. You can also do use the read actor and that way you can go ahead and just highlight things that you don't want people to see alright, so you could do that.

Also, oh yeah. Of course the shortcuts are awesome when you're in the home screen. You can literally put any of these letters to your shortcuts, for example, see goes to my calculator, so one-handed operation. You can go quickly between calculator and, let's say Gmail if you're using two hands. Obviously, you can use this special key and do the same thing, which is much faster, so I, like the option that you can use one-handed and use all your shortcuts.

For example, Q will actually go to my camera. Alright, and you can program any of these. I still haven't used all of them so with blackberry, key -. If you press the shortcut key, and it's not assigned GUID, you simply go and assign it to whatever you want. So P I want to go to Pandora, which makes it very user-friendly.

Alright, another thing, I really like, is really easy to pen apps, for example, you're going to hand your phone to the police officer or something I, don't know why you would do that, and you don't want him to like to hit the homepage and do something else. You can just pin the screen and hand it to him if you want to get out its home and back button, so little nifty features I find that BlackBerry has at it. But you try to do this on the galaxy. It really sucks. You have to literally hit the recent button, and then you have to actually be pen button and I like how the recent apps are in the grid form, which is really nice I, could just pin it right away really quick.

This way you had your phone to somebody else, and they're not gonna, be able to go and look in other parts of your phone. My reviews getting kind of long, and I just really wanted to talk about how I felt about this phone. From my own experience, I do have a full review right up. You can also check out article that's separate from the video that will cover some of the things I didn't cover in this review, because I don't want to cover everything that everyone else covered, but I felt like the most important point. Today was the keyboard size.

A lot of people were talking about how fast the keyboard is or how slow it is. But if you don't have the right size keyboard for some people, that's going to be perfect for some people, it's going to be really hard, so I think blackberries should really think about making two different sizes, especially for the larger crowd, because this is not going to cut it even for myself. I have hard time typing it's very, very cramped. If they can make it just a tiny wider, it would make a world of difference or even put it in landscape. I, really like that idea.

Blackberry makes a blackberry key G key gang, make a blackberry game phone man I think it's going to kill it because everyone's doing that, but aces rock phones, adding keyboard or controls, but keyboard would actually work even better, because you know gamers are used to using keyboards I mean Desktop. Gamers are still using their keyboard and I think that would be great anyways. If you have any questions on anything. I missed out on this review because obviously cannot cover everything and I don't want to do leave your comment in the comment box below also I do a lot of periscopes. So you can always ask me questions when I'm doing live.

You can join me on my periscope at 0, max on periscope and yeah. If you enjoyed my review, you want more reviews like this, make sure to subscribe and make sure your notification bell is on. Otherwise, we won't be notified. I still love it I'm, just saying it could be way better with minor changes or major changes. Landscape gaming, but yeah.

If you're on the fence about getting a BlackBerry, just go to your local store and try it doesn't try it for like 10 minutes, try it for lightly, at least like thirty minutes an hour. You know what just buy it and use it for at least a month and make sure you can return your phone after a month because on the phone like this you're not gonna, be able to know how good this is until you use it for a few months. That's why this is not my final review of the key to because I feel like I'm still trying to get back into using the keyboard, and it's gonna. Take me another two months and I type. Pretty fast on the keyboard anyway, I've also got new high on Android t-shirts through tee spring things to YouTube opening up their t-shirt.

Things so check that out. I'll have a review on some New York t-shirts. All video on that have a great day and, as always, stay.

Source : Max Lee