Gadgetory

all right so way back in June we reviewed the BlackBerry key - and it was pretty good I liked it but for a lot of people it just didn't make sense blackberries have always been pretty niche devices but in 2018 if phone with the full physical keyboard is just kind of weird for a lot of people and it was also $650 which is also kind of weird especially considering it had a Snapdragon 660 now this isn't a weak processor by any means but it's not one of Qualcomm flagships and if you're paying that much for a phone you're probably gonna want to get a little more power out of your device so apparently blackberry I heard your call and now they've built a phone that they think can actually take on a lot of other budget devices this is the BlackBerry key - le alright so the key to le looks really similar to the original key - and I mean like really similar it's pretty much got the same frame but this year it's made of a polycarbonate plastic which makes it about 30% lighter but it actually felt pretty good to hold in your hand it still feels like metal and that's not really something I expected out of an all-plastic device they also rounded a lot of the corners that were originally really chamfered and sharp on the original blackberry key - and it just feels more like a modern-day phone now the keeps you felt great don't get me wrong and I love the industrial design but this phone feels a little bit more like something you would actually get in the budget category and if you're gonna charge less per device you obviously have to have weaker components the key to le is using a snap during a 6:36 processor which is newer than the 660 but it's not necessarily better it's just kind of clocked at a lower speed the rims been cut down to 4 gigabytes instead of 6 and the storage options are now 32 gigabytes and 64 gigabytes and that's a little low for my liking but I kind of understand why they did it since they're now trying to hit a more budget category the camera still looks the same but it's just been reduced in megapixel count so you might not get images as clear as the ones that I got on the BlackBerry q2 now to be fair you're still getting a lot of the really great things about the BlackBerry key - you're getting the exact same screen you're getting the same full QWERTY keyboard and kept the convenience key and the speed key now they did tell me that the keys are 10 percent smaller than they are on the key 2 but they still feel pretty big in the hand and I didn't really have any problems with them while I was using it today unfortunately cutting cost means they're gonna be cutting some sensors out of the keyboard so you're not gonna be able to use that keyboard as a trackpad anymore you're still getting the headphone jack USB C port and downward firing speakers and of course you're not getting IP water resistance or micro SD card expansion just like you didn't get in the BlackBerry key - and the most obvious change that you've already seen in my hands on here are the colors there are three new colors of this phone and you're getting slate which is like a gray black mostly gray a champagne which is like a gold around the sides and I'm kind of green on the back and then you're getting what they're calling atomic which is really just this vibrant saturated red color so blackberry told me that they pretty much did this because they didn't feel like they needed to stick to this industrial design that they got on the BlackBerry key - they had the opportunity to just kind of mess around with colors on this light Edition since it's not really that serious with the curved edges and all that other stuff and I think it's pretty cool I mean the red color really pops out and if you're someone that wants to get a phone that looks different this is probably the model you're gonna get anyway so all this context and whittling down doesn't really matter unless I tell you the price well the 32 gigabyte of storage model is going to cost you $399 and the 64 gigabyte model is gonna be 449 and that's a pretty decent price I think I mean the specs aren't the greatest but what you're really paying for here is the type of phone you're getting the full QWERTY keyboard and you're getting something that looks completely different from every other phone on the market right now anyway that's just the heart information meshed with my two cents and we have a full article on all the specs on this phone if you want to dig a little deeper but let me know what you think about this device was it weird of blackberry to go out and make a light addition of the key to or you have a key to yourself or do you think that this is all just completely ridiculous let me know in the comment section below and make sure you go stay tuned to the article and check out our website because of course we a source for all things Android