BlackBerry is back in India with its another QWERTY keyboard plus touch-screen smartphone, the BlackBerry KEY2. It is the successor to BlackBerry KEYone, that was launched last year in April. KEY2 is BlackBerry’s first smartphone with a dual rear camera setup and is distributed by Optiemus Infracom in India. The device was launched on July 23 and is priced at Rs 42,990 in India, and will be sold by Amazon India.
BlackBerry KEY2 Specifications and Features
BlackBerry KEY2 flaunts a 4.5-inch FHD IPS LCD panel with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass protection. The screen has a resolution of 1620 x 1080 pixels with an aspect ratio of 3:2 and 433 ppi density. KEY2 is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC clocked at 2.2 GHz with Adreno 512 GPU for enhanced gaming experience and graphic rendering. The phone comes with 6GB RAM with either 64GB or 128GB storage, expandable upto 256GB via a microSD card. BlackBerry KEY2 is the company’s first smartphone with dual rear camera setup. The horizontally placed rear cameras consist of two 12MP sensors – one with f/1.8 aperture and 79.3-degree FoV, and the other sensor with f/2.6 aperture along with 50-degree FoV. The rear cameras are capable of recording 4K videos at 30 fps. At the front is an 8MP sensor with screen flash for brighter selfies in low-light conditions, also capable of recording 1080p videos at 30 fps.
Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, 3.5mm headphone jack on the top and USB Type-C charging port. Juicing up the device is a 3,500 mAh Li-Ion battery with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 support.
Running on Android 8.1 Oreo, BlackBerry KEY2 supports DTEK with Proactive Health check feature, a Speed Key or a convenience key by Optiemus to access most used custom apps on the go just by coupling the dedicated key with an alphabet. The device also sports a touch-sensitive QWERTY keyboard with flick typing and scrolling, textured diamond grip non-slip back panel, and Series 7 aluminium alloy frames on the sides. The spacebar key on the QWERTY keyboard houses the fingerprint sensor.
BlackBerry KEY2 Offers, Availability and Price
Distributed by Optiemus Infracom, BlackBerry KEY2 will be available via Amazon India from July 31 at a base price of Rs 42,990. Jio is offering a cashback of Rs 4,450 which will effectively bring down the price to Rs 38,540. ICICI bank users are also entitled to a cashback, the company has also said that it will be providing additional launch benefits on the BlackBerry KEY2.
