[Aviv]

It took me less than 20 minutes of playing with this phone before I decided I'm not keeping it.

Coming from the Priv, I was really worried about the screen. The Priv has an amazing 2K Samsung-made AMOLED display that makes media consumption just as enjoyable on it as on any high end Samsung or LG phone. I also enjoy the Priv's camera - with 18 megapixel it has great detail, the sensor is fairly large and with OIS and EIS combined, 1080p video looks like it's shot with a gimbal.

To understand if I can deal with the LCD in the Key2, I went to Best Buy and inspected a KeyOne on display. To my surprise, the screen looked just fine. It was sharp enough, had an accurate white point and saturation, and I could see myself living with the size and aspect ratio.

As to the camera, judging by the reviews, it seemed ok. I actually thought it would be a good opportunity to rely more heavily on my real cameras and use those more.

When I took the Key2 out of the box and started playing with it, I was shocked. The LCD had a horrible, pink white point that made every person in a photo look like he got burnt after spending a week in the Sahara. I took my Priv and a V30 and googled sunflower images. The Priv won this test, and the LG did well too. On the Key2, the sunflowers were orange. I showed it to my husband to make sure it's not just me - and he was horrified just as I was. This phone couldn't show yellow tones properly. I wonder if this is how TCL thought it should respond to some guys here complaining about yellow tint.

As to the camera, it never hit me from the reviews how inferior it is to what the Priv can provide. Going down to 12mp is fine if you can make low light photos look good, but we know that's not something the Key2 does. Zooming into the photos, everything looks like a mess. Compression artifacts are even worse than on the Priv (which wasn't great), and texts that were perfectly readable through the Priv's camera are just a blur on the Key2. I also finally figured out that in portrait mode, the actual image detail comes from the main sensor. The secondary only provides the depth info. It means that the flattering perspective of a 50mm lens is not utilized in Key2 portrait shots, detail is lost because it's basically a 2x crop from the main camera, and also light sensitivity goes down because the crop means that only a portion of the sensor is used.

This phone is now going back to Amazon. I hope that future production runs of the Key2 will sort out the LCD issues. However, I'm not buying into it. If my Priv becomes unusable before a competitive Key3 comes out, I'll have to look elsewhere and maybe give up on my precious keyboard. For people who consider their options right now - I think that a Galaxy S8 or S8+ with the keyboard case is a better option than the Key2 (shame that Samsung discontinued the keyboard case for the S9).

The Key2 does have its highlights - it felt very fast, and the keyboard was very good, large and clicky, and my spacebar was fine. If all you need is a good keyboard, this phone is a good option, given that you can afford it.

[the_boon]

It took me less than 20 minutes of playing with this phone before I decided I'm not keeping it.

Coming from the Priv, I was really worried about the screen. The Priv has an amazing 2K Samsung-made AMOLED display that makes media consumption just as enjoyable on it as on any high end Samsung or LG phone. I also enjoy the Priv's camera - with 18 megapixel it has great detail, the sensor is fairly large and with OIS and EIS combined, 1080p video looks like it's shot with a gimbal.

To understand if I can deal with the LCD in the Key2, I went to Best Buy and inspected a KeyOne on display. To my surprise, the screen looked just fine. It was sharp enough, had an accurate white point and saturation, and I could see myself living with the size and aspect ratio.

As to the camera, judging by the reviews, it seemed ok. I actually thought it would be a good opportunity to rely more heavily on my real cameras and use those more.

When I took the Key2 out of the box and started playing with it, I was shocked. The LCD had a horrible, pink white point that made every person in a photo look like he got burnt after spending a week in the Sahara. I took my Priv and a V30 and googled sunflower images. The Priv won this test, and the LG did well too. On the Key2, the sunflowers were orange. I showed it to my husband to make sure it's not just me - and he was horrified just as I was. This phone couldn't show yellow tones properly. I wonder if this is how TCL thought it should respond to some guys here complaining about yellow tint.

As to the camera, it never hit me from the reviews how inferior it is to what the Priv can provide. Going down to 12mp is fine if you can make low light photos look good, but we know that's not something the Key2 does. Zooming into the photos, everything looks like a mess. Compression artifacts are even worse than on the Priv (which wasn't great), and texts that were perfectly readable through the Priv's camera are just a blur on the Key2. I also finally figured out that in portrait mode, the actual image detail comes from the main sensor. The secondary only provides the depth info. It means that the flattering perspective of a 50mm lens is not utilized in Key2 portrait shots, detail is lost because it's basically a 2x crop from the main camera, and also light sensitivity goes down because the crop means that only a portion of the sensor is used.

This phone is now going back to Amazon. I hope that future production runs of the Key2 will sort out the LCD issues. However, I'm not buying into it. If my Priv becomes unusable before a competitive Key3 comes out, I'll have to look elsewhere and maybe give up on my precious keyboard. For people who consider their options right now - I think that a Galaxy S8 or S8+ with the keyboard case is a better option than the Key2 (shame that Samsung discontinued the keyboard case for the S9).

The Key2 does have its highlights - it felt very fast, and the keyboard was very good, large and clicky, and my spacebar was fine. If all you need is a good keyboard, this phone is a good option, given that you can afford it.

You may want to look into the KEYone (preferably Black Edition)

[howarmat]

sounds like a faulty unit to me honestly.

[JOHNGAETANO]

Hard to disagree with 18mp vs 12mp. SMH

[Aviv]

You may want to look into the KEYone (preferably Black Edition)

I wanted the Key2 because it benchmarks twice as fast as a KeyOne/Priv and it also feels twice as fast. The KeyOne is to me only a marginal improvement in performance compared to the Priv, with a worse camera and much inferior display.

[mtalinm]

i couldnt stand typing on the priv keyboard

[YeahIgottheKey2]

sounds like a faulty unit to me honestly.

Always makes me laugh... 'this phone is garbage because I had a defective one. I'm going back to my awful inferior phone that is laggy and barely usable'

[Matthew Davis7]

I sold my Priv a month or so after I bought it. Build quality was loose; display was nearly impossible to see in direct sunlight; the keyboard was shallow and mushy, and the battery life was a abysmal. It did keep my hands warm, however!

Posted via CB10

[S2G-Unit]

It took me less than 20 minutes of playing with this phone before I decided I'm not keeping it.

Coming from the Priv, I was really worried about the screen. The Priv has an amazing 2K Samsung-made AMOLED display that makes media consumption just as enjoyable on it as on any high end Samsung or LG phone. I also enjoy the Priv's camera - with 18 megapixel it has great detail, the sensor is fairly large and with OIS and EIS combined, 1080p video looks like it's shot with a gimbal.

To understand if I can deal with the LCD in the Key2, I went to Best Buy and inspected a KeyOne on display. To my surprise, the screen looked just fine. It was sharp enough, had an accurate white point and saturation, and I could see myself living with the size and aspect ratio.

As to the camera, judging by the reviews, it seemed ok. I actually thought it would be a good opportunity to rely more heavily on my real cameras and use those more.

When I took the Key2 out of the box and started playing with it, I was shocked. The LCD had a horrible, pink white point that made every person in a photo look like he got burnt after spending a week in the Sahara. I took my Priv and a V30 and googled sunflower images. The Priv won this test, and the LG did well too. On the Key2, the sunflowers were orange. I showed it to my husband to make sure it's not just me - and he was horrified just as I was. This phone couldn't show yellow tones properly. I wonder if this is how TCL thought it should respond to some guys here complaining about yellow tint.

As to the camera, it never hit me from the reviews how inferior it is to what the Priv can provide. Going down to 12mp is fine if you can make low light photos look good, but we know that's not something the Key2 does. Zooming into the photos, everything looks like a mess. Compression artifacts are even worse than on the Priv (which wasn't great), and texts that were perfectly readable through the Priv's camera are just a blur on the Key2. I also finally figured out that in portrait mode, the actual image detail comes from the main sensor. The secondary only provides the depth info. It means that the flattering perspective of a 50mm lens is not utilized in Key2 portrait shots, detail is lost because it's basically a 2x crop from the main camera, and also light sensitivity goes down because the crop means that only a portion of the sensor is used.

This phone is now going back to Amazon. I hope that future production runs of the Key2 will sort out the LCD issues. However, I'm not buying into it. If my Priv becomes unusable before a competitive Key3 comes out, I'll have to look elsewhere and maybe give up on my precious keyboard. For people who consider their options right now - I think that a Galaxy S8 or S8+ with the keyboard case is a better option than the Key2 (shame that Samsung discontinued the keyboard case for the S9).

The Key2 does have its highlights - it felt very fast, and the keyboard was very good, large and clicky, and my spacebar was fine. If all you need is a good keyboard, this phone is a good option, given that you can afford it.

I have a Key2 now, Priv previously & many other BB's before. I'm probably going to keep my Key2 but it's a crappy phone, that's way overpriced. Camera is garbage, LCD is not good.
Stupidly, I just want a PKB so badly, so I might keep it.

The problem is that too many people on this site make excuses for Blackberry's subpar & overpriced products.

[Aviv]

I'm usually not an early adopter. If I do decide to pay 650 for a new phone, I expect it to work well out of the box and not make me cycle through RMAs until it's fine. In any case, I decided that even without the tinted screen, the Key2 is not what I'm looking for.

As to the Priv's faults, it is very slow. I tweaked it and now it doesn't heat up, so there's that. The reason I need a keyboard is not because I'm a bigshot businessman. I just like the social aspect of easily texting friends and family, and posting on social media. An inherent experience of that type of use is watching videos and photos, and the Key2 doesn't do this well while the Priv with the screen and the front firing speaker is perfect. I can tolerate certain apps like google maps being very slow to launch, but overall most apps I use are light and work well enough.

[JOHNGAETANO]

i couldnt stand typing on the priv keyboard

Agree!!!!!!

[Chuck Finley69]

I'm usually not an early adopter. If I do decide to pay 650 for a new phone, I expect it to work well out of the box and not make me cycle through RMAs until it's fine. In any case, I decided that even without the tinted screen, the Key2 is not what I'm looking for.

As to the Priv's faults, it is very slow. I tweaked it and now it doesn't heat up, so there's that. The reason I need a keyboard is not because I'm a bigshot businessman. I just like the social aspect of easily texting friends and family, and posting on social media. An inherent experience of that type of use is watching videos and photos, and the Key2 doesn't do this well while the Priv with the screen and the front firing speaker is perfect. I can tolerate certain apps like google maps being very slow to launch, but overall most apps I use are light and work well enough.

If you buy a phone at intro, you’re subject to early adopter penalty. That’s why “early adopter” risk exists with less proven hardware/software. It would be no different than expecting Android/IOS to be flawless back in the first 3-4 years.

It’s not like OEMs share their solutions to solved problems with each other.

[Sporkguy3]

Wierd, so far I have found the Key2 camera much more useful than the Priv. I will sit in my office and snap photos of documents that are hard to Scan and the Priv would take forever to focus, but the Key2 works immediately and comes out far sharper. I do like the Priv's camera, but it was so slow even with every other app shut down, and the Key2 camera, while not perfect is treating me pretty well.

[jd3232]

I have a note 8 and I've been using the key2 for a little over a week now as daily driver. The screen surprisingly hasn't been an issue for me. For me, it's the camera performance. All in all, I'm enjoying the device

[anon(10268214)]

OP, you should have at least waited for the first OTA update and reassessed the situation. It seems to me they made some adjustments to a lot of things, such as adding Aptx HD audio Bluetooth support, adjustments to the camera, tweaks to the display settings, etc. as part of that 400+ MB update. Night and low light shots seem quite a bit brighter on the rear camera, and the whiteout that was happening for me on the front camera was also significantly reduced. The photos it's pushing out now are actually quite decent. These are just my own observations and it's difficult to prove because TCL has been mum on any changes, so take it for what it's worth.

[Aviv]

As a Priv user I know not to trust BlackBerry with updates. Also, I don't want to wait with the device in hand and let the return period expire. If it gets better I can repurchase.

Also, particularly about camera performance - we've all seen many cases where new phones are launched with mediocre cameras and manufacturers promise improvements that never come. I think that what you get out of the box is in most cases what you'll be left with. True to most Motorola phones, the Essential and many more. Some sensors and lenses are just not as good as others, and that's the way it is.

[striderbg]

You can tweak the color temperature of the screen to get rid of the yellow. There's a thread here:
https://forums.crackberry.com/blackb...creen-1150916/

[jic999]

my KEY2 camera is great no issues here

[Fred98TJ]

my KEY2 camera is great no issues here

Post up some photos.

[anon(10268214)]

As a Priv user I know not to trust BlackBerry with updates.

PRIV is EOL, so I'm not sure what relevance that statement has, nor how it applies to the Key2. I got my silver Key2 on July 13 and it received a 472 MB OTA update less than a week later. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[gebco]

PRIV is EOL, so I'm not sure what relevance that statement has, nor how it applies to the Key2. I got my silver Key2 on July 13 and it received a 472 MB OTA update less than a week later. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Perhaps OP felt that BlackBerry should provide monthly security updates for more than two years so that those like me who bought the Priv 8 months after launch barely got 1.5 years of monthly updates, notwithstanding the recent one.
Like OP, I really like the Priv screen, and the camera isn't half bad. The overall lag is noticeable though, especially compared to the KeyOne of which we have two in our household. Unfortunately, my next phone won't be a BlackBerry. First time since the days of my flip phones.

[S2G-Unit]

Perhaps OP felt that BlackBerry should provide monthly security updates for more than two years so that those like me who bought the Priv 8 months after launch barely got 1.5 years of monthly updates, notwithstanding the recent one.
Like OP, I really like the Priv screen, and the camera isn't half bad. The overall lag is noticeable though, especially compared to the KeyOne of which we have two in our household. Unfortunately, my next phone won't be a BlackBerry. First time since the days of my flip phones.

Honestly, good for you. For the first time, I'm considering ditching my Key2 for a P20 Pro.

[anon(10268214)]

Perhaps OP felt that BlackBerry should provide monthly security updates for more than two years so that those like me who bought the Priv 8 months after launch barely got 1.5 years of monthly updates, notwithstanding the recent one.
Like OP, I really like the Priv screen, and the camera isn't half bad. The overall lag is noticeable though, especially compared to the KeyOne of which we have two in our household. Unfortunately, my next phone won't be a BlackBerry. First time since the days of my flip phones.

Yes, it is true they only kept the bare minimum commitment for updates on the PRIV. Even worse for the abandoned DTEKs, which BlackBerry tried to back out of by saying they were never their phones in the first place. I get that. But BlackBerry also ditched out of hardware during that time, and when the PRIV was new...it was getting security updates faster than Google's own devices, and for a considerable period had among the best update record of any Android phone. It's also too bad major US carriers blocked the updates and killed the phone's reputation.

The reality is the PRIV was still a very well supported phone for a time...and until BlackBerry left the business. Perhaps it was TOO long ago, and now that the PRIV is EOL, people have already forgotten that. LOL.

[Invictus0]

The reality is the PRIV was still a very well supported phone for a time...and until BlackBerry left the business. Perhaps it was TOO long ago, and now that the PRIV is EOL, people have already forgotten that. LOL.

Not really, the Priv only received one OS update (realistically, the Priv should have launched with Marshmallow) and has only received one patch since monthly updates stopped.

That's bad for Android flagships let alone BlackBerry's own standards for updates (they're still updating the Z10 after all).

[anon(10268214)]

Not really, the Priv only received one OS update (realistically, the Priv should have launched with Marshmallow) and has only received one patch since monthly updates stopped.

That's bad for Android flagships let alone BlackBerry's own standards for updates (they're still updating the Z10 after all).

Realistically, it launched on Lollipop. Period. So one full OS update it is, and that's the most any BlackBerry Android is going to get, even today. As for patches, they were very consistent at first and then steadily tapered off. Given the most recent patch was late last year I believe...and albeit many months late for the issues it corrected...I would still say overall support was not great, but still forgivable because BlackBerry LEFT the friggin hardware business. That seems to be an unfortunate reality many folks here fail to grasp, or take into consideration when assessing the support they received (or didn't receive) for the PRIV.