BlackBerry is back in India with privacy-focused Key2: Price, full specifications

BlackBerry, the iconic smartphone brand from yesteryears, is making a comeback to the Indian market. Optiemus Infracom, the BlackBerry brand licensee in India, on Monday launched the BlackBerry Key2.

Priced at ₹42,990, BlackBerry KEY2 will be available via Amazon.in starting 31st July . The smartphone comes with Reliance Jio 's cashback offer of ₹4,450 and ICICI bank cash back offer of 5% along with additional launch benefits. Optiemus Infracom says it is manufacturing the BlackBerry KEY2 for Indian customers locally at its Noida facility.

BlackBerry Key2 is the successor to the last year's BlackBerry KeyOne. The new smartphone retains the key features that BlackBerry has been known for — QWERTY keypad and security, lots of it. But these features aren't without the modern components. For instance, it has a 4.5-inch IPS display with 1620x1080pixel resolution. The phone runs on Android (v8.1 Oreo) with a slew of customisations to include BlackBerry's security and productivity features. BlackBerry KEY2 also integrates Google Lens, an AI-driven platform that lets users look up information about an item by pointing the camera at it.

Physical Keyboard
BlackBerry Key2 comes with Corning Gorilla Glass protection along with a textured panel on the back. There's an improvement to the physical QWERTY keyboard to make it faster for users to access their frequently visited applications. For instance, you can tap on key "G" to launch he Google applications. The space bar also doubles up as the fingerprint sensor. The keyboard also supports gestures and can be further customised. And there are capacitive menu buttons on the screen for navigation.

Security & Privacy
BlackBerry believes the security and privacy features are far more important and relevant now than in the past. Optiemus executive director Hardip Singh points out that with youngsters sharing personal data on applications like Facebook, phones like BlackBerry have become necessary.

BlackBerry Key2 comes with a bunch of security features such as Locker, Power Center and DTEK. The Locker application, as the name suggests, allows users to store their private photos and files and access the folder through fingerprint sensor. This app can also store other data like private apps and even browsers.

DTEK is a universal platform that allows users a detailed insight into which applications have what level of access to their device and device data. Users can also restrict apps' access to their device data.

Power Center is more of a utility application that gives users personalised alerts about battery life. The application uses machine learning algorithms to understand users' behaviour.

Specifications
BlackBerry Key2 comes with a 4.5-inch IPS display having 1620x1080pixels resolution at an aspect ratio of 3:2. The smartphone is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 660 octa-core processor coupled with 6GB RAM and 64GB built-in storage The smartphone supports microSD card for expandable storage up to 256GB.

The smartphone comes with dual rear cameras featuring two 12-megapixel sensors. Other camera features, include dual PDAF, 4K video recording, and dual tone LED flash. On the front, it has an 8-megapixel selfie camera with fixed focus and full HD video recording support.

In terms of connectivity, BlackBerry Key2 supports USB Type-C, NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, dual-SIM, and Wi-Fi. It is powered by a 3,500mAh battery.