The BlackBerry KEYone: barely released here in the United States a few days ago.
This is the latest and greatest flagship from BlackBerry; one of the oldest smartphone manufacturers
in the business.
BlackBerry peaked back in 2013 before Android and the iPhone became the main players.
Lately though, BlackBerry has been dipping its juicy fingers into the Android operating
system.
And that brings us to this KEYone.
It does feel heavy in my hands so we’re off to a good start.
Let’s see how this new phone holds up to my durability test.
[Intro]
This is a completely brand new retailed device purchased right here in the United States.
I’ve tested about 70 different smartphones now, and like always, we start with the scratch
test.
The screen of this KEYone is a very humble 4 and half inches, but I’ve been told that
gets the job done just fine.
My Mohs picks do a great job differentiating between glass, tempered glass, plastic and
sapphire.
Plastic is a 3.
Sapphire is an 8 or a 9 on the scale.
Lately we see most flagships using tempered glass, which lands at a level 6.
And this rectangle slab of Gorilla Glass 4 scores exactly the same hardness level we
would see on a Galaxy S8 or and iPhone 7.
So far this BlackBerry is holding up pretty well to its competitors.
What’s cool about this satisfying clicky keyboard is that it’s touch sensitive, so
you can control the up and down, left and right scrolling of the screen without actually
touching the glass itself.
It’s kind of fun.
Even with the extremely heavy scratching from my razor blade, more than you would ever see
in everyday life, the scrolling functions still work.
So you will never have to worry about leaving your keyboard exposed.
Thumbs up for that.
Speaking of thumbs, the fingerprint scanner is cleverly hidden in the spacebar of the
KEYone and it’s the next part to get tested.
Even with heavy scratches on the surface of the fingerprint scanner, it is able to read
and scan my fingerprint and unlocks the device on every single try.
So far, so good.
The front 8 megapixel camera is up here at the top.
And this lens is made from glass along with the opaque lens on the other side with the
proximity sensor; both are made from glass.
One slightly underrated feature on smartphones these days is the dual toned flash.
If you ever have to use the phone in the dark, the dual tone provides a much better image
than one with just a single color white flash.
This is covered by plastic but that’s pretty normal on all flash LEDs.
The rear 12 megapixel camera is covered with glass as well; pleasant upgrade from the plastic
lens on the BlackBerry Priv.
It also has a thick metal ring around the outside to help protect it from rubbing up
against the inside of your pocket or purse.
That pocket sand can be pretty vicious.
The back cover is made out of a thin grippy rubberlike material.
A BlackBerry in real life is actually a type of aggregate fruit which means that it’s
composed of tiny little individual fruits called drupes.
Drupes are the little juicy circles surrounding the actual seed of the berry.
BlackBerry, the phone company, chose the name “BlackBerry” because all of the little
black keys on their keyboard resembled the drupelets on the blackberry fruit.
The same drupelets you see in their logo.
See, it’s a blackberry.
The cover is surprisingly resistant, even to my razor.
If you key the KEYone, nothing happens either.
The sharp edge of my coin was able to scrape it up a little though, but that was with a
lot of pressure.
Normal wear and tear won’t hurt the surface of this back panel.
And the sides of the KEYone are made from sweet sounding metal.
The power button is also made of metal.
And up here by the headphone jack there is a plastic end cap, but I’m not going to
complain about plastic because I’m just happy the headphone jack is still there.
The rest of the silver top surrounding the headphone jack is the quality metal, including
over here on the front of the phone where the earpiece is.
BlackBerry did a good job of future proofing the KEYone with the USB-C port at the bottom.
And now the burn test.
This has become increasingly more relevant now that Trump has pulled the USA out of the
Paris Climate Agreement.
Things are going to heat up rather quickly and it will be nice to have a cell phone that
can handle the temperature.
I’m sure Donald will be watching my videos to see which phone allows him to Tweet the
longest while the world burns.
This phone lasted about 16 seconds, which should fit his attention span just fine.
The good news is that the phone did completely recover.
There might still be hope.
And now the bend test.
Testing the overall build quality of a phone is essential to the people who want a phone
that will survive everyday life, and unfortunately this BlackBerry KEYone was not a survivor.
I was even holding the screen when it popped out of the frame.
It surprised me to see the screen do that since most other screens, like Samsung, have
so much adhesive behind them it takes a high powered heat gun or industrial hot plate to
remove them.
And this BlackBerry screen is held in by nothing.
A quick bend from the other side, and at this point my screen stopped functioning entirely.
One, the power button was kinked since the glass was adding zero structural support without
that strong adhesive.
And two, with the screen lifting up like it is, the first thing to tear is that ribbon
cable at the bottom of the display.
The whole thing can be removed entirely by hand because there is zero adhesive holding
it in place.
No visible adhesive around the edges or under the LCD of the screen.
Nothing.
A quick Google search revealed that I’m not the only one who has this problem.
One guy dropped his phone on the center console of his car and the screen popped off.
And another guy woke up with a detached display, which is completely believable if the displays
are actually shipping with no adhesive under them.
This is a legitimate problem.
Luckily for BlackBerry though, it is very easy to fix and I’d be more than happy to
make another video if BlackBerry ends up correcting this manufacturing oversight.
So hit that subscribe button if you want to stay updated on this situation.
I’ve tested about 70 phones now; most of them are build very well and those that fail
end up on my Shelf of Shame.
Only 6 phones in 2 years have failed my tests.
And since my BlackBerry KEYone is not currently functional, it is going with these 6 phones
on my Shelf of Shame…until BlackBerry gets this figured out at least.
It really does seem like an easy fix, so hopefully they will take care of the problem and their
customers.
If you already own one of these phones, maybe grab a case that surrounds the lip of that
glass screen.
I’ll pop the back off the phone for kicks and giggles.
The black PCB board is creative.
I’m a fan of that.
And there’s a BlackBerry logo on the battery.
It would have been pretty easy for them to slip some wireless charging in here as well,
but I think I’ve complained enough for one day.
Come hang out with me on Twitter and Instagram.
Thanks for watching.
I’ll see you around.