BlackBerry KEYone, the smartphone manufactured by TCL, has been launched in India today at a price of Rs 39,990
Hoping to woo old users back with a QWERTY monoblock keyboard that has become a rarity these days and wishing to get new users interested in the added layer of security and software convenience, BlackBerry has brought its new KEYone Limited Edition Black smartphone to India. Available exclusively on Amazon from August 8, the phone will be priced at Rs 39,990 and marketed and manufactured by Optiemus Infracom Limited.
Hardip Singh, executive director of Optiemus, told indianepress.com that the phone will be manufactured by his company in India. “That is what lets us bring the phone here at global prices, which has never happened before,” he said. Singh is optimistic that he will be able to cash in on the brand value BlackBerry still enjoys in India. “It’s no small thing that there are still over a million active BlackBerry phones in India.” He said the easy EMI plans they have lined up will make the phone affordable to everyone.
Alex Thurber, senior vice-president and general manager of mobility solutions at Blackberry, said the company was now focussed on the licensing partnerships model and Optiemus will be the partner in India. The two had earlier collaborated for launching the Dtek phones. Globally BlackBerry has three such partners. “Here the strategy is to work closely with Optiemus which knows the market better. They will also be in charge of the relationships with partners,” he said. BlackBerry, he said, is very focussed on the Indian market. “With 1.5 billion customers it is a growth market for us.”
For now two customers will get bonus points if the phone is purchased with an American Express card and 75GB additional data if the phone is used on a Vodafone. Incidentally, the latter applies for both postpaid and prepaid users which is new.
The BlackBerry KEYone went on sale in the US and Canada in May. In the US, KEYone was priced at $549 (unlocked version). BlackBerry KeyOne was first showcased at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in 2017. The KEYone continues with the iconic physical keyboard which was the highlight of the BlackBerry smartphones, though of course, the new phones are on Android.
In terms of specifications, BlackBerry KEYone comes with 4.5-inch LCD IPS display with 3:2 aspect ratio and resolution of 1620 x 1080 pixels with a pixel density of 434 ppi. The processor on the BlackBerry KEYone is Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 and the phone comes with 3GB RAM on board, along with 32GB storage. There’s also support for a microSD card with up to 2TB limit. Battery on the BlackBerry KEYone is 3505 mAh with the company promising 26 hours of talktime.
On the camera front, BlackBerry KEYone has a 12MP rear camera with the Sony IMX378 sensor and 1.125um pixel size. The front camera is 8MP. The highlight of the BlackBerry KEYone is not just the specifications, but the actual physical keyboard. It has the four row physical keyboard on the front, but this one doesn’t slide up like it did on the BlackBerry Priv. The KEYone has a smart keyboard, which also responds to touch gestures, and has 52 shortcuts which can be customised. The fingerprint scanner is embedded inside the space bar of the BlackBerry KEYone.
The phone runs Android 7.1 Nougat, but also comes with other BlackBerry apps like the BlackBerry Keyboard, BlackBerry Hub and DTEK by BlackBerry. The phone has its own security features from BlackBerry.
