Mobile World Congress 2017 will officially start on February 27, but pre-announcements will be this weekend, which is February 25 and February 26. Blackberry hosted its MWC pre-briefing where it revealed the new BlackBerry KeyOne smartphone.
The said event was live streamed on CrackBerry's Youtube page, which is also the official partner for the event. TLC and BlackBerry have a first look at the upcoming device at the earlier CES 2017 held in January in Las Vegas. The event unveiled the phone's specifications and pricing of the upcoming smartphone.
The new BlackBerry KeyOne is the newest and the most powerful Blackberry. It comes with a full-on QWERTY keyboard and the largest battery to ever grace a BlackBerry handset. The handset has a 4.5-inch scratch-resistant display with a resolution of 1620x1080 pixels and a 3:2 ratio.
The phone runs on an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of native storage space. Other specs include a 12-megapixel back camera with 4K video recording at 30 fps, a 3,505 mAh battery. An 8-megapixel fixed-focus selfie camera with 1080p video, and USB Type-C. The phone also runs Android 7.1 out of the box.
Similar to other BlackBerry devices, the flagship phone is extra secure. The phone has a hardened operating system, added some security keys to the processor, and a pre-loaded DTEK security application.
The phone will be the first of the bunch, arriving in North America in late April, priced at around $550. US customers will be able to buy it online at launch.
TCL's North American President, Steve Cistulli, said, "It is for the person who was forced onto a flat glass but wants to come back, there's no compromise. In the past there, there was always a compromise, screen size, keyboards or apps. Here there's no compromise."
The Blackberry KeyOne is set to be launched across the globe, but the release dates will differ for different markets. The phone will sell for $550 in the United States, €600 in Europe, and £500 in the United Kingdom.
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