The BlackBerry KEYone, the company’s first device made in partnership with Chinese company TCL Corporation, was announced Saturday at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. It is the company’s second Android phone — the previous one being the BlackBerry Priv.
Both phones seem like different benchmarks for the company — the Priv was the company’s first Android device, while the KEYone is the first one with a customizable keyboard.
While the KEYone is a mid-range device, the Priv is a high-end device. The price difference between the two is $150 as Priv costs $699 and the KEYone costs $549.
The Priv comes with a 5.4-inch 2K AMOLED display with a 2K screen resolution of 1440 x 2560p and a display density of 541ppi. The KEYone comes with a 4.5-inch IPS LCD display with a full HD resolution of 1080 x 1920p.
Both devices come with QWERTY keyboards — the KEYone comes with a keyboard placed under the display, and the Priv comes with a slide-out keyboard that can be slid back under the display for full touch-screen usage.
However, the QWERTY keyboard on the KEYone is more advanced — it comes with customizable keys, swipe gestures and a fingerprint sensor placed under the space bar.
The BlackBerry KEYone comes with Android 7.1 Nougat OS out-of-the-box, while the Priv comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS.
In terms of camera, the Priv trumps the KEYone. While the KEYone comes with a 12-megapixel rear camera with dual LED and an f/2.0 aperture, the Priv comes with an 18-megapixel rear camera with an f/2.2 aperture. The Priv’s rear camera offers optical-image stabilization, which the KEYone’s doesn’t.
The KEYone has an 8-megapixel front camera, while the Priv comes with a 2-megapixel one.
Under the hood, the Priv comes with a Snapdragon 808 processor, while the KEYone comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor. Both phones have 3GB RAM and 32GB onboard memory.
In terms of battery, there is just a slight difference between the two — the Priv comes with a 3,410 mAh battery, while the KEYone comes with a 3,505 mAh one.
In conclusion, there are three key differences between the devices — display, processor and camera— in which the Priv seems to do better, but the KEYone’s standout feature is its customizable keyboard. Simply put, the Priv offers similar features to other touch-screen devices in the market, but the KEYone has a unique offering in the form of its keyboard.
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