BlackBerry unveils Key2 smartphone
But will younger folks like the Qwerty keyboard?
“An icon reborn.” That’s the hopeful marketing phrase TCL Communication is using to pump up interest in the latest BlackBerry smartphone, the Key2, which begins to ship globally this month. In the U.S., it will cost $649. As with the BlackBerrys of yesteryear, this latest device emphasizes a physical Qwerty keyboard, industrialstrength security and long battery life.
You’re forgiven if your first response is one of surprise: “BlackBerrys are still around?”
It has been about 16 months since China’s TCL, under the BlackBerry Mobile brand, unveiled a predecessor model, the BlackBerry KeyOne, at the Mobile World Congress industry trade show in Barcelona.
By then, BlackBerry — the Waterloo, Canada, company — had stopped making BlackBerry hardware, instead licensing the brand to TCL. But that BlackBerry, known in its heyday as Research In Motion, or RIM, still contributes much of the DNA inside a BlackBerry phone.
In one form or another, BlackBerry has been on the comeback trail for several years now, and while the market for BlackBerry isn’t exactly thriving, the fact that there even will be a Key2 after the KeyOne has to say something.
Alain Lejeune, who is a senior vice president at TCL Communication and the president of BlackBerry Mobile, told me he’s realistic about BlackBerry’s current standing. While he wouldn’t disclose sales figures, he claims the KeyOne is making a “positive contribution to TCL.”
Lejeune recognizes that for the Key2 to succeed, BlackBerry must go beyond nostalgia and appeal to smartphone users who have grown up in the iPhone era, a tough task.
He hopes that in the race to uniformity among smartphones, BlackBerrys will stand out for being, well, different.
Why for example, wouldn’t at least some young people find a physical keyboard appealing the way their parents once did?
Of course, TCL’s ongoing challenge has been to make today’s BlackBerry both modern and relevant. Along those lines, the Key2 becomes the first BlackBerry with dual rear cameras, each 12MP. Better late than never. Same goes for the new Portrait mode feature.
But when it comes to the camera, there’s no facial recognition as on the iPhone X or some Samsung Galaxys.
Inside the Key2 is a robust Qualcomm processor, 6GB of memory and 64 or 128GB storage options, expandable through MicroSD.
As an Android Oreo phone, the Key2 has Google Lens and the Google Assistant.
The physical hardware had an aluminum frame and soft bank. The screen is a modestsized 4.5-inch touch display.
BlackBerry still must play up to its traditional strengths, and that means security. An improved version of the DTEK by BlackBerry security app that we’ve seen on other BlackBerry models comes preloaded here. It gives you an overall reading on how secure your phone is, and you can dig deeper for info on downloaded apps, managing permissions as necessary. DTEK might tell you, for example, how many times a given app might have retrieved your location and reports on what apps are doing in the foreground and the background.
A password or finger print-protected Locke rap pisa handy place to stash photos, documents and even entire apps from prying eyes, a dating program for example.
With the latest renewed focus these days on privacy, maybe that’s what it will take to give this faded brand the latest boost to keep going.