Blackberry KeyOne Monster

After falling in love with the Blackberry Priv almost two years ago I had almost no intention to look elsewhere for a new phone. Unfortunately the Priv has started showing some signs of ageing: apps, especially the newer ones, have become sluggish. Especially the Android platform common features such as content sharing have become annoyingly slow. And the battery life has been far from perfect. Living with a power bank has become my daily habit.

Blackberry KeyOne, the successor of the Priv, never looked as the greatest phone on the Planet, at least on paper. Smaller screen, a processor not from the cutting edge top line available now... But it turns out, the Blackberry KeyOne is probably the phone that should be occupying the headlines and be desired by everybody. Because it is an engineering marvel, and especially product - wise it demonstrates how a very careful evaluation of requirements and engineering choices delivers an absolutely winning package.

Than winning combination starts with the fact that it runs for full FIVE DAYS on a charge. Yes, that is right. 120+ hours with all features on, under a moderate load, as illustrated by the screenshot above. Probably down to half of that in heavy use (I'm yet to discover this) but lets face it: Blackberry has managed to do the impossible and bring back to the smartphone era the battery experience of the legendary Nokia 6310. It runs and runs and runs...

Other than the battery, there is plenty of speed. It feels very snappy. Has an absolutely great camera. And of course the physical keyboard (it is a Blackberry, after all). The keyboard, while permanent, occupies less of the overall real estate than a software keyboard that pops up when you need to type anything on a keyboard-less phone. So while the screen is smaller, it effectively is not smaller at all in many scenarios. The fingerprint reader embedded in the space bar is phenomenal. And so is the screen contrast in a full daylight. It is an extremely practical and well performing package. If you use a phone to do anything more than browse photos or watch Netflix (which most of us do on a computer or tablet anyway), look nowhere else. You will be amazed.