Spotted on SIRIM just last week, pre-orders for the BlackBerry KEYone are now open in Malaysia. Retailing at RM2,688, this very last in-house smartphone from BlackBerry commands a rather premium price tag for a mid-range smartphone, but consumers are paying for more than just hardware with the KEYone.
First, specifications. The KEYone features a 4.5-inch 1620 x 1080 IPS display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset paired with 3GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, 12MP rear and 8MP front-facing shooters, a 3,505mAh battery, as well as Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box.
Now, these specifications certainly don’t fit the KEYone’s RM2,688 asking price, but there’s one thing that differentiates this Android smartphone apart from its competition: a physical QWERTY keyboard. Naturally, it’s not just a regular keyboard either.
For one, the KEYone’s keyboard has a number of useful gestures BlackBerry users will be familiar with. You can swipe to the left on the keyboard to delete a word while typing, swipe down to summon a list of extra characters, and even scroll through a webpage by using the keyboard as a sort of touchpad. Aside from that, the space bar also doubles as a fingerprint sensor.
The BlackBerry KEYone is now available for pre-order on DirectD as well as Lazada for RM2,688. According to DirectD, the KEYone will arrive in Malaysia by the end of this month.
(Source: Facebook (DirectD))
