BlackBerry announced the KEYone smartphone earlier this year, and the company has just announced that the device is now available in the US at Amazon and Best Buy. The new BlackBerry KEYone is priced at $549.99.
Blackberry offers the KEYone in two different unlocked options in the US market, with the other option being a CDMA model destined for Verizon. Amazon offers the CDMA in the US. Sprint and other carriers are expected to announce availability this summer.
“It is a very exciting time as we announce the new BlackBerry smartphone to customers here in the Americas, with the launch of the new BlackBerry KEYone,” said Steve Cistulli, President and Country Manager, TCL Communication, South America.
KEYone is also available in Canada and the United Kingdom
BlackBerry first showed off the KEYone during CES this year and fully unveiled it during the biggest tech event of 2017, MWC. The device comes with some premium features and ensures that the BlackBerry brand continues to belong to the high-end smartphone market.
The BlackBerry KEYone comes with 3GB of RAM and a 3,505mAh battery, while the internal storage is 32GB, expandable up to 2TB using a microSD card. The phone also comes with a 4.5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1620 x 1080 pixels.
It runs on an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC clocked at 2.0Ghz paired with a 64-bit Adreno 506 graphics processing unit. It has a 12MP Sony IMX378 camera on the rear and an 8MP camera with 1080p video on the front panel.
The phone features Quick Charge 3.0 and runs Android 7.1 Nougat. The most exciting feature of the KEYone is the physical QWERTY keyboard that brings back one of the most iconic features of a BlackBerry phone. The space bar doubles as a fingerprint sensor that allows users to easily unlock the phone.
