Blackberry KEYOne: 2017 Comeback? By Marques Brownlee

Hey, what is up guys? Um could be HD here, its 2017, and this is a new BlackBerry for real. This is the BlackBerry t1, and it's definitely very much still a blackberry, but it's also really well optimized and updated for 2017. This is a tough one, because I am definitely not in the target demographic to buy a phone like this. This is the phone for people who either really want a physical keyboard or people who really want a blackberry. I am neither of those people, but I gave it a shot anyway. So BlackBerry has tried all kinds of interesting stuff in recent years with their hard work kind of because, they have ?, they tried hiding the keyboard.

They tried a square phone with a colored keyboard right underneath the square, and this one definitely brings it back to classic blackberry. This is a 16 20 by 1080 display up top and a permanent keyboard down there at the bottom available at all times, but in tons of ways. As you can see, it's very well updated for 2017. It's this all-metal bill. That's really built like a tank tolerances are tight.

Its evenly weighted and the glass is rounded around the edges for this near seamless feel on the hand like the Galaxy S8, and it even has the antenna bands on the outside of the metal frame like the iPhone and every single button and the camera ring are chambered, so just build quality wise. It's actually top-notch, it's not water-resistant, unfortunately, but it's definitely more drop resistant than your other top shell flagships like Galaxy, s8 or like LG g6, and also this display isn't exactly top-notch I mean I, didn't have any scaling issues, but it is 1080p in a quad HD world, and it also struggles in the brightness Department. But when you consider the price, this fits right in line with a pretty nice piece of 2017 smartphone hardware. It also has USB type-c with fast charging thumbs up there very 2017, and this mid-back is this I guess it would be a soft touch plastic with just a little of texture. I, really like this.

It's a reminder that the slick all glass back is not the only way to enable wireless charging. You can do it this way too, except this phone doesn't have wireless charging now I'm, know jury-rigged everything, but I think if phone nine millimeters thick, they probably could have found space for that. You know what I'm going to say: already: probably poison a slit seriously aside from the water resistance and wireless charging. This phone is built great in 2017. That is a good sign.

I think the button placement is a little weird or at least take some getting used to. Instead of the normal power button. On the right hand, side, it actually has the power button on the left hand, side and then, where the power button used to be is another button called the convenience button, and it's like an exactly where the power button usually is, but once you get used to this backwardness, it's actually a pretty nice feature. It lets you map to literally launch any application or shortcut on the whole phone I set mine to launch the Google Assistant, and it lets me because it's a feature Samsung. So it's anyone actually thinking about buying this blackberry.

Here's how it does on my five pillars of a great smartphone in a quick snapshot, not spectacular, but not bad, for a $550 smartphone. It kind of falls in the upper mid-tier, but for most people not bad, isn't really selling anybody on this phone. It really has to have some sort of over-the-top feature of some sort of specialty that puts it over the edge and I really think this blackberries over the top specialty feature is customization. Furthermore, it started with the remarkable convenience button, but it goes way further. Thanks to having a physical keyboard when you're at the home screen, you can literally map any of the letters on the keyboard to be their own custom launcher shortcut same thing.

You can pick any app or any shortcut both for a short press or a long press of that key. So each button can launch two different things when you first press an unassigned button, it'll give you a suggestion for some apps that start with that letter. But of course it's completely up to you and that just makes things so much faster and easier to launch. You could have a totally clean home screen, so I'm, after short, press of the Y key, for example, to just launch the YouTube app right away. So it only takes me a matter of seconds to get into any app I frequently use thanks to these shortcuts in the keyboard, and then there are other advantages to having a physical keyboard as well.

Besides, just being slightly clicker than a virtual one. For example, you can do actual keyboard shortcuts, like control, C and control V, and this keyboard also doubles as a trackpad as a sort of scroll wheel. So you can scroll through apps and web pages, without getting your finger in the way of the content, which is awesome pro-tip, you can scroll super deep into Instagram, using this method, with no risk of accidental double taps, so you're welcome. You just got to be careful not to swipe too hard, or you can accidentally hit the home button right above the keyboard. I definitely did this a couple of times, but this is why I find it most useful in landscape mode, so keyboard scrolling is definitely awesome here and then, when you're typing.

Of course, aside from all the keyboard shortcuts, you can use, swiping up will do autocomplete for the word. You're typing helps with some longer words, I think, and then you can swipe backwards across the keyboard to delete your last word. This one's definitely more useful because we make mistakes all the time when typing and then, of course, as you've probably noticed by now, the space bar also doubles as the fingerprint reader. So you can unlock your phone super quick with just a touch of the space bar, the biggest button on the whole front of the phone. Very nice integration, good use of space there well done so.

Overall, this keyboard gets a nod from me again: I'm still I'm, not in the target demographic for someone, who's going to be using a phone with a keyboard like this very much, but I could see how someone could get used to it. It has a lot of tricks up its sleeve I. Do wish it had a dedicated number row at the top and I wish. The keys were a little bigger for my hands, but it doesn't, and they aren't that's too bad for me all right so question: what's the difference between an Android phone with a keyboard and a blackberry key one? It's a software, and here on this phone you have a healthy mix of 2017, new Android, smartphone and throwback blackberry features that you may or may not find. Incredibly valuable.

Blackberry hub, for example, is the same as last year. It gathers all your information into one place from texts to emails to Instagram and Twitter. Basically, all your notifications and just piles them into one place, so you don't have to wander around checking things, and then it lets you dismiss or snooze them with super fine control, definitely useful for some. But for me, I just prefer the regular Android Notification Center BBM you either use it or you don't, and then all the BlackBerry DEC features they're very valuable and work great, but some may completely ignore it like they ignore other pre-installed, Android security, apps on other phones and then all the shortcuts. Again.

This keeps with the theme of blackberry, giving instant access to everything and tons of customization. Here all these shortcuts in the BlackBerry launcher, give you one touch access to all kinds of little granular things like checking battery stats or starting to compose a text or email in your app of choice. Pretty awesome stuff over here I like this theme and then also on the launch or any app that has a widget. You can view that widget by swiping on their icon, so I can tell which ones have that by which ones have the three dots on the home screen and when you swipe it, it just reveals the widget. This isn't new, it's definitely in some other phones and in some third-party launchers, but it's pretty damn convenient.

If you ask me so, there's a lot of cool stuff here and a lot of awesome, customization features packed in that I really like, but I can still say that at the end of the day, it doesn't quite outweigh the cons for me of having so much of your screen chopped off by a physical keyboard that I probably won't use very much, but at the end of the day this is the best smartphone with a physical keyboard, and this is the best blackberry ever made. So how bad do you want a physical keyboard or a blackberry? It's on you. Let me know, thanks for watching I'll talk to you guys in the next one peace.

Source : Marques Brownlee