Gadgetory

what's up guys lon here from Android authority and last year blackberry released their very first Android smartphone ever with the BlackBerry Prive and it had some good things going for it but it wasn't exactly a smash hit now they're back at it again with what they claim to be the world's most secure smartphone but what else does this phone offer and is security alone a big enough selling point to make this phone worth buying this is the BlackBerry detect 50 when looking at the D Tech 50 you might be thinking that this phone looks eerily familiar to another phone that you may have already seen and that's because the design of the D Tech 50 is actually based off of the same TCL reference design that Alcatel used for the idol 4 it's pretty much identical to the idol 4 in almost every way from the curves on the top and bottom rounded corners and flat sides it even carries the same dual front-facing speakers and dual rear facing speakers as the idol for my only anoints with these speakers is because of the tiny machine holes they're very prone to getting dirty and trapping dust but the sound quality of the speakers is actually quite good they're loud and don't get distorted or tinny at all even at max volume and because the speakers are also mirrored on the back you can put this phone face up or face down without any deterioration in these sound quality the most distinguishable design Q on the B Tech 50 that makes it different from the auto 4 is on the back instead of a glass back that detect 50 has this textured back made of a silicone like material that feels really nice doesn't attract fingerprints and gives the phone a lot of grip the general shape of the D Tech 50 reminds me of the Nexus 4 from back in the day especially when looking at it from the front so I'm definitely a fan of the design it's simple clean and comfortable to hold and use in one hand thanks to the thin side bezels and small top and bottom chin on the top of the phone you'll find the headphone jack the microUSB port on the bottom and on the right side is the SIM slash micro SD card slot for extra storage the volume rocker and what appears to be the power key but instead this is what blackberry calls the convenience key it's a 100% completely programmable button that can be assigned to a variety of different shortcuts composing a text toggling on Wi-Fi controlling the LED flash or opening a application of your choice including third-party ones the power button is located on the upper left side of the phone and this is actually my biggest gripe with the D Tech 50 if you use your phone in your left hand that I suppose it may not be that big of a deal but for most people it's going to feel really awkward and pretty tough to get used to I like to call it the inconvenience key thankfully it does have double tap to wake and double tap to sleep so you can avoid using the poorly placed power button altogether I will admit that the double tap to wake is a little bit slow and sometimes doesn't always respond on the first try but I still personally prefer this over using the power button to make your life easier you can also reprogram the convenience key to lock the device but unfortunately it can't be used to wake it the screen measures in at 5.2 inches which is an average size for a smart phone in 2016 and it's an IPS LCD with a resolution of 1080p it's not a display that's going to knock your socks off but I have no complaints with it it gets bright enough to see outdoors has decent viewing angles and a good amount of color and contrast without being oversaturated the 1080p resolution also works perfectly fine for the screen size there's plenty of sharpness that graphics and text are easy to read and watching videos web browsing and playing games is still an enjoyable experience inside it's being powered by a Snapdragon 617 Adreno 405 and 3 gigabytes of RAM which are pretty run-of-the-mill specs for a mid-range phone and performance is a little bit of a mixed bag in normal everyday use it runs perfectly fine touch responsiveness is good it opens apps quickly and multitask without much of a problem there is the occasional stutter from time to time but it's really not that big of a deal gaming on the other hand is where you'll notice a lot of hiccups games are still certainly very playable but game low times can be pretty long and there tends to be a lot of choppiness and lag even on a game as basic as Pokemon go this happens especially if there's a lot of graphical elements on the screen at one time games like CSR racing 2 also have to render graphics at a much lower resolution and limit some in-game functionality and order to run smoothly which is a little disappointing so if you're a big mobile gamer this phone isn't really going to do you justice but for everything else I don't think you'll have too much of a problem with only a 16 gigabyte option you also won't have a lot of storage to store bear minigames or much of anything for that matter so it's probably a good idea to pick up a micro SD card and the detect 50 is capable of supporting cards up to 256 gigs battery life I would say is another weak point on the D Tech 50 it has a two thousand six hundred and ten milliamp hour battery which I guess you could say is pretty small when compared to a lot of other smart phones on the market and you can probably eke out a full day if you stick to the basic texting and checking emails but for me personally I like to use my phone for gaming watching YouTube and checking social media pretty frequently and if your usage is anything like mine you're going to have a pretty tough time getting to the full day it's not really even going to come close the most I was able to get was around 7 to 8 hours off the charger it does have quick charge 2.0 which is nice so it's really easy to fill up but I'd still recommend getting a battery pack especially if you like playing Pokemon go on the rear there's a 13 megapixel camera with f 2.0 aperture phase detection autofocus and a dual tone LED flash as far as the camera app goes it's pretty basic it doesn't offer any extra shooting modes beyond the standard video photo and panorama and it also has a bunch of live filters built in it does have HDR auto and a built in manual mode for controlling focus white balance shutter speed ISO and exposure but beyond that it doesn't offer a whole lot of bells and whistles to get a great looking photo with this camera you really need to have good lighting but even then there's a noticeable lack of sharpness and detail when zooming in it does have good color reproduction if you're shooting outdoors or in a well-lit area but in low-light is where it really begins to break down the camera constantly hunts for focus making it very difficult to take a photo and when you finally do take a photo they're usually very noisy with a lot of artifacts and the images just look very soft and muddy the front camera isn't really all that notable it's 8 megapixels and can take some decent selfies and the notification LED light also functions as a front-facing flash to help you get some slightly better-looking shots in low light but the results still typically aren't that great the big story here with the D Tech 50 isn't about the design the camera or the specs it's about the software and the security that comes along with it the majority of the security comes from the detect application which is where the phone got its name D Tech will show you your device's security status and this can change over time the more you use your phone what D Tech all of your data is encrypted and you control the permissions of individual apps and what they're allowed to access so you never have to worry about apps having access and things that you don't want it to there's also a factory reset protection which in the event that someone steals your phone and factory resets it they still won't be able to use it without knowing your Google account info whether it really is the most secure smartphone in the world is pretty tough to say but blackberry is promising that they will be very quick to release security patch updates as soon as they are available the rest of the software is a very stock like Android marshmallow experience with a lot of blackberry software enhancements on top many of which we saw on the prayer from last year it comes with bbm installed by default and personally I don't use it but it's there for the few of you who still love communicating five bbm I do hover like a lot of the features from blackberry and many of them are actually pretty useful you have the productivity tab which you can access by swiping in from the right to see your current calendar events emails tasks and your most recent contacts my favorite feature definitely has to be the BlackBerry hub if you aren't familiar with it the BlackBerry hub is your one-stop shop for virtually all three notifications aggregates your bbm text messages emails phone calls and social media all into one place making them very easy to check it does have some issues like Gmail for example doesn't render properly through the hub but for the most part it does what it's supposed to do extremely well you can also swipe up from the bottom I love old-school Google now style to access three app shortcuts and by default these are set to blackberry search the dialer and blackberry hub but you can set these to be any apps that you want like that BlackBerry gives you a lot of room for tweaking and customization and something that I really enjoy is that you use third-party icon packs to customize the default launcher if you're a fan of widgets the pop-up widgets is a very useful feature basically any app that you have that supports a widget will display three dots beneath it and all you have to do is swipe up to open the widget it's a really elegant solution to using widgets without having them take up any space on your home screen of course you can't talk about blackberry without talking about keyboards the DTEC 50 is an all touchscreen device so it doesn't have a physical keyboard obviously but it does come with BlackBerry's own software keyboard it's accurate easy to type on and I like that BlackBerry's predictive text allows you to swipe up on a letter to quickly complete a word blackberry software isn't perfect and does have some minor quirks like the way the app drawer looks when the apps are sorted alphabetically they're not only sorted alphabetically but it's also sectioned out by the letter and visually it just doesn't look very appealing overall though I'm a fan of blackberry software and their features add a lot of value without feeling bloated or taken away from the stock Android experience the BlackBerry G tech 50 is being priced at $300 here in the US and it's completely GSM unlocked so it's plug-and-play for carriers like AT&T Mobile 300 bucks is rather inexpensive especially if you want a phone that prioritizes security in that case you're probably not going to find a better deal but as a phone there's a few better options out there they offer a lot more for similar prices like the oneplus 3 the Moto G 4 plus and even the axon 7 if you store a lot of sensitive information on your phone the detect fifties top-notch security will be well worth the investment but if this phone had one major flaw it's that Blackberry didn't make it a better phone all around as always thank you guys so much for watching this video I hope you all enjoyed this review of the BlackBerry D tech 50 if you did please give a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and feel free to follow us on social media like Instagram snapchat Twitter Google+ all that good stuff and follow me on Twitter as well all that stuff is also down below and check out the website Android authority comm because we are your source for all things Android Oh