BlackBerry’s KeyOne gets more storage, more memory at IFA

We’re not sure how many folks go for BlackBerry, but now that the Canadian smartphone original has embraced Android, it’s sweetening its phone just a little more.

The return of a proper BlackBerry this year by TCL’s communication division was definitely welcome, as one of the originals in the smartphone world was given a new shot of life.

While the brand may not have as much weight as it used to, we certainly know of people who were keen to see the brand get a much needed shot in the arm, with the release of the KeyOne and a phone that skipped over BlackBerry’s mobile operating system and brought a keyboard-based phone back to the fore with Android featured heavily.

Australian reviews weren’t bad for the phone either, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the phones we’ve seen this year so far, it’s that there’s always room for improvement, and that normally arrives in more souped up specs.

And that’s exactly what BlackBerry appears to be doing with a launch at IFA in the BlackBerry KeyOne “Black Edition”, a model that skips the more silver or grey metal finish of the original and exchanges it for black, while upgrading the memory from 3GB to 4GB and the storage from 32GBto 64GB, keeping a microSD slot around for the option of expanding this.

Outside of these changes, the KeyOne Black is still the same phone as what was already released, with a 4.5 inch touchscreen display sporting Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4, a 12 megapixel rear camera, Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, and Android 7.1 “Nougat”, not to mention toon 4G LTE.

“The global release of the BlackBerry KeyOne from TCL Communication has far exceeded our expectations, with our re-imagined BlackBerry smartphone now available in more than 30 countries around the world,” said TCL’s Alain Lejeune.

“We’re excited to follow our initial launch with the all-new BlackBerry KeyOne Black Edition that delivers on our promise to expand our BlackBerry smartphone portfolio in 2017, while laying the groundwork for another addition to our lineup later this year,” he said.

Lejeune’s comment suggests another BlackBerry is on the way, but as for what and when we’ll see that, your guess is as good as ours. That said, the end of the year is approaching, and both Apple and Google have yet to announce their big hands, suggesting we’ll see something by mid-to-late October from BlackBerry.

However if that’s too long a wait for whatever that phone is, you’ll see BlackBerry’s KeyOne Black Edition retain the original price with an in-store price tag arriving soon for $899 locally.