Gadgetory

there was a time when this meant tradition it meant love it meant addiction in some cases I'm sure I wasn't the only guy called a CrackBerry back in the day and it's one of the main reasons why the recent ad struck a positive nerve in my heart I loved my blackberries back then I used to love my blackberry I still do but a lot has gone wrong since then and then a few steps were done right but the library key one was a good step in that right direction but it wasn't quite the daily driver for me so it's time for round two I'm Jaime medley that I was pocket now when let's find out if the BlackBerry key 2 is finally my daily driver fun fact what I love the most about blackberries back in the day is that I felt that they were the perfect blend between hardware and software they were elegant they were fast and they lasted all day and then some I feel the BlackBerry key to gets the hardware right think of the key one on a very strict diet and then fix everything I didn't like about it we have a gorgeous aluminum build match with a stippled back for added grip and have I told you just how light this phone is I mean if you're coming from a key one it is a dramatic difference now bear in mind this device is designed to be a communicator first and therefore the spec sheet is designed to deliver on that we have a new qualcomm snapdragon 616 processor for power efficiency six ago bytes of ram 64 gigs of expandable storage a 3500 milliamp power battery with Qualcomm quick charge 3.0 --into the battery life has proven to be as good as the key one but oddly for some reason I sometimes feel the key one could go a little farther I've ended the day with at least 50% of battery on this device pretty much every single time but I had cases with the key one where oh my god I could get up to the second day and even then some now a lot of the power efficiency comes from having the less display to power at 4.5 inches diagonal 16 20 by 1080 resolution and LCD technology we don't necessarily get the best experience when it comes to media consumption now don't get me wrong colors are great but we don't have the brightest display here and obviously the form factor gets in the way of 16 by 9 video and then the speaker quality is not necessarily the greatest and very easy to muffle so again the experience of content consumption is not what I would call its stronghold there in mind this is a communicator first again and the bottom 40 here is what makes that happen mostly I wasn't really much of a fan of the key ones keyboard but I think blackberry finally got it right we now have more spacious keys and that finish if you like the keyboard on the BlackBerry Bold 9900 back in the day this keyboard feels almost as good it is seriously a joy to type on though there is a learning curve if you've been typing on glass for years going back to pressing keys actually feels awkward at first it took me about three days to get used to it that being said I do love that there is text prediction so I don't really need to type words correctly and if you're multilingual like me you can create a multilingual keyboard in the settings in order to not have to be switching languages all the time now for those of you asking the million dollar question why would you want a keyboard in 2018 and it has everything to do with the experience with the software one of the main reasons why I became addicted to BlackBerry's back in the day was because of how much you could customize them to feel yours see each key allows you to set up to two shortcuts and the speed key at the bottom right allows you to access these from anywhere in the user interface want to call on your girlfriend by pressing the X do it want to launch whatsapp with the W you can also do that I honestly find the experience of jumping between applications to be cumbersome on regular phones or even basic things like making a phone call which is something I don't feel I have a problem with on the key - there's even a convenience key for more shortcuts you can use the keyboard for navigation gestures and even the spacebar serves as a fingerprint scanner and to take photos when you're in the camera now software is actually one of the things that I praise on this device because its unique in the things that it has to be we have Android 8.1 out of the box which I praised productivity being its main focus it offers essentials like the BlackBerry hub where you can consolidate all of your messaging there are slide menus from the left to right where you can set your calendar tasks and even other widgets from other apps security being also important we have BlackBerry D Tech which provides full granular control over what applications can see from your privacy I'll admit I'm shocked at how many times apps like Google will use your microphone without you knowing it in the background or apps will use your camera without you knowing it as well in the background it's maybe question if I want to use these applications or not or it's made me use detect to be able to not allow these applications to use the camera for example but probably what's most important is that all these layers don't really bog down the experience of navigating through menus it's definitely not a gaming phone by any means but it'll get the job done if you tax it I also praised this device for the basics of being a communicator doing a great job to cling to networks and Wi-Fi in the toughest of situations and also being really good at phone calls now moving the spotlight over to one of the most important reasons why buy a phone or not I have to say that I am partially disappointed at the cameras and I say partially because if you launch the viewfinder on the primary shooter you'd believe that the photos are blurry or bad I think that there must be some sort of a bug in the camera app because once you look at the final photos both on the phone and on the computer the results are actually really good there's great color saturation and detail at this point and even low-light performance is decent in most scenarios I can't really say that portrait shots are the best that I've seen but they're not bad and the sink can be said for using this telephoto camera so long as you do it in daylight video recording is where things start to get weird again I'm not sure if this is a software bug or not but my unit claims to have enhanced video stabilization and I don't really notice any when I'm walking around and even if I find selfie video to offer a really good crop I also don't notice the belies a ssin being offered here and in the topic of selfies this is another point of disappointment for me the results are honestly mediocre at best with washed-out photos even in good lighting and don't even get me started about low-light performance sure I get it the business customers might not be fans of selfies but I don't think that's an excuse for selfies to be bad particularly on this device to conclude I have to say that I am very mixed about this device I am one of those people that actually do love the design I love the keyboard I love the conveniences of the software and oh my god I love this phone's battery life sadly it's not the perfect phone and it's not perfect than things that are very important things like for example the $650 price tag are very difficult to sell you've really climbed into 1 plus 6 territory here and yes I do get that this phone is designed for a niche in mind but this amount of money leaves no room for mediocrity and the camera experience Falls there in addition to the lack of essentials like water assistance my final verdict is that I do love the BlackBerry key 2 I will be using it as my communicator but bear in mind my case is unique I also carry a second phone that will most likely serve as my multimedia powerhouse and also will take better photos than this phone unless you love the BlackBerry key 2 for the same reasons that I do it's very hard for me to sit here and tell you that this device is worth $650 I feel that it's overpriced I feel that there are other options out there we'll do a better job in essentials that are key for users today so unless you fall under that niche of people that actually want a keyboard in this experience my final verdict would be that you would be probably better served with other options for a little less money folks let us know what you think about the BlackBerry key - in the comments down below would you be willing to buy this phone or not and while you're at it make sure you follow us on social media and subscribe to our channel for more videos like this one and follow me on twitter and underscore to get our on Instagram and how you leave it out please give this video a thumbs up if you like what you saw I'm Jaime meddling than I think so much for watching I'll see you on the next one