Review on BlackBerry Key2 LE

We like the BlackBerry Key2, but $650 is a lot of money for what amounts to a midrange Android phone with a keyboard and a few extra security options. In contrast, the $449.99 price tag of the BlackBerry Key2 LE makes it a lot more tempting. In addition to a physical keyboard, it comes with a comprehensive set of productivity and security-focused software. You'll be disappointed if you're looking for something a little less powerful than the iPhone 5. If you're willing to accept a few compromises to save money, we're giving the Key2 LE a better rating than we did for the original version.

Design, Strength, and Appearance

Good news for BlackBerry Key2 fans: The Key2 LE is virtually the same. A 4.5-inch display and a textured rear provide more grip on this slimmer, lighter device. Its plastic frame is lighter than the Key2 (5.93 ounces) at 5.5 ounces.

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Key2 LE Champagne 8 for BlackBerry The 3.5mm headphone jack is on the phone's top. The power button, volume rocker, and customisable convenience key are on the phone's left side, while the SIM card slot and microSD card slot are on the phone's right side. Dual speakers and a USB-C charging connector can be found at the bottom of the device.

Is this the keyboard of your dreams?

The Key2 LE has a QWERTY keyboard like most BlackBerry smartphones. It's a joy to type on such a small keyboard. The phone is thin enough to allow one-handed typing and has large matte keys that are easy to discover and hit. In addition, a Speed Key lets you build shortcuts to frequently used apps and tasks, and a fingerprint sensor is hidden in the space barCellular device.

BlackBerry Key2 Limited Edition Champagne 3 There is also a touch-screen keyboard in addition to the conventional keyboard. Regarding texting, it's easier than using the alt key and the appropriate character on the keyboard to dial phone numbers or add special symbols.

However, the Key2 LE's keyboard lacks an important feature. Capacitive touch—the ability to utilise it as a trackpad—is missing. The touch screen is the only way to navigate a webpage or move the pointer around. However, the absence of this feature is not a deal-breaker for me.

Audio Quality and Network Performance

Dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and Bluetooth 5.0 are also included for connecting headphones and other wearables to the phone. As a result of Google Pay's integration with NFC, making purchases is a breeze.

The quality of the calls is excellent. During our tests, the noise cancelling effectively shut out most of the ambient noise. Even on a busy downtown street, you can have a reasonable conversation using the earpiece at 87 dB. The speakerphone's call quality is less than stellar. Calls sounded tinny in our tests.

For streaming music, the bottom-firing speaker works perfectly. Do not expect high-quality audio when playing games or listening to music at lower volumes. As a result, even if the speaker is loud enough to fill a room, you probably won't want to because it sounds tinny at higher volumes.

Batteries and a Processor

The BlackBerry Key2 LE sticks close to the midrange norm regarding specs. 4GB of RAM and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 CPU power it (for comparison, the standard Key2 has a Snapdragon 660). The internal storage is a reasonable 64 GB, and you can expand it to 256 GB using the microSD card port.

The results are satisfactory. There's a tiny lag when opening apps, and multitasking with more than half a dozen apps slows things down. The Key2 LE scored 5,826 on PCMark, which gathers measurements from several typical smartphone operations, including online surfing and video editing, in a benchmark test... Even while the OnePlus 6T (8,651) and Motorola Moto Z3 (7,378) are more expensive, you shouldn't have any issues using them for basic tasks like email, online browsing, or reading documents or spreadsheets while on the road.

Cameras

You'll find a 13MP primary camera with f/2.2 aperture and a 5MP secondary camera with f/2.4 aperture on the back of the phone. An 8-megapixel selfie camera is located on the phone's front. a Champagne-colored BlackBerry Key2 LE

In high light, the rear cameras perform well. However, there is a noticeable reduction in background detail. However, low-light shots aren't very excellent. Our test images were abysmal quality with a large amount of blur in the background. The results are underwhelming, but this is expected given the lenses' small apertures (the OnePlus 6T's cameras are f/1.7). In all lighting conditions, the front-facing camera was a nuisance.