When Blackberry unveiled its newest Android smartphone at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year, people were pretty much excited about the KEYone as it resembled the “old school” Blackberry that people loved. This time it runs on the Android platform and it has the physical QWERTY keyboard, which still appeals to a lot of people apparently. However, these people might have to wait a little while longer as the OEM has decided to delay the shipping to US and Canada. Instead of this month, they will start shipping sometime this May.
Both Blackberry CEO John Chen and TCL Communication (their manufacturing partner) President and GM Steve Cistulli confirmed that they decided to move the official release to May in order to meet the “demand” for the phone. They said that even though the devices are in production, they have already exceeded their initial supply. It’s pretty disappointing for those who were excited to get their hands on this device and see if the Blackberry magic is officially back.
The interest in the KEYone may actually be real, as people seem pretty excited about seeing a physical keyboard once again. Aside from that, the device has a 4.5” 1080p screen and is powered by a 2.0 GHz Snapdragon 625. It has a 3GB RAM and a 32GB internal storage plus a 12MP main shooter and an 8MP front-facing camera.
It may be a bit of strategy on their part as well, since Samsung announced their new flagship, the Galaxy S8, a few days ago and will be supposedly released later this month. So steering clear of that may give more attention to the KEYone when it eventually gets to the market in May, or if they will follow Cistulli’s time table, May 5 to be exact. Let’s see how it will go and if this will really be their comeback.
.@BBMobile Therefore the U.S. and Canadian KEYone launches will be in May 5/
— Steve Cistulli (@SteveCistulli) March 31, 2017
SOURCE: TCL
