BlackBerry KeyOne lands in the US and Canada on May 31

After a long wait and slight delay, BlackBerry and TCL have finally revealed the launch date for the physical keyboard toting BlackBerry KeyOne for the US and Canada markets.

The BlackBerry KeyOne pre-orders will begin from May 18 in US and Canada, and will go on sale starting May 31. In the US, the KeyOne will carry a price tag of $549 (Rs. 35,000) for the unlocked variant and will work on both CDMA and GSM networks. In Canada, it will be available on a two-year term contract starting at $199 CAD (Rs. 9,400) via Bell, Bell MTS, Rogers, SaskTel and Telus Business.

To recap, the BlackBerry KeyOne was first shown off at CES 2017, and was officially announced at MWC 2017, last month. The main highlight of the KeyOne is its iconic physical keyboard. The keyboard button's are backlit and responds to touch gestures as well. It also includes 52 customizable shortcuts, and the fingerprint sensor is hidden inside the spacebar.

Coming to the specs, the BlackBerry KeyOne features 4.5-inch 1620 x 1080 pixels IPS display with 3:2 aspect ratio and is powered by Snapdragon 625 chip with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage, which can be expanded via microSD card. It comes with 12MP Sony IMX378 rear camera, 8MP front camera and runs Android 7.1 Nougat. It also comes with pre-loaded with BlackBerry apps like keyboard, Hub and DTEK. Other specs include 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11ac, NFC and USB Type-C port.

The KeyOne is said to be the last BlackBerry smartphone designed and engineered in-house, and was manufactured in partnership with TCL. Last year, BlackBerry also signed a long-term with TCL to give it exclusive rights to design, build and sell BlackBerry-branded smartphone globally except a few Asian countries including India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Currently, there is no word, when BlackBerry KeyOne launches in India. 

Via