~2 years with a Classic, 2 days with KEYone

I bought my Classic almost two years ago. I bought my KEYone on the 30th. TLDR: I'm hooked.

The keyboard is smaller and less sculpted, yes, but I'm getting along. In fact, even though I'm at home with my beloved Model M within reach, I'm typing this on the KeyOne. I need the practice to get used to this, lol. I sometimes hit the sym key when I go for the m, for one. I also sometimes accidentally swipe on the keyboard and do something funny, or hit a capacitive button. I'm slowly learning to use swipe up completion.*

Physically, the phone is easy to hold and type on. I can't really type one-handed, but I was always terrible at that. The aluminum sides are a bit slick though. The back is not as nice as the Classic's. Aesthetically, the phone is nice. The silver highlights are nicely done imo, and make the phone stand out from the crowd of boring black slabs.

One question I have is if it's possible to use the keyboard to move the cursor like the trackpad on the Classic does. I'll have to check if turning off gestures enables that. I think it'd be more useful when writing long blocks of text than the swiping.*

It doesn't. That sucks. Really sucks.

The battery life is great, as expected. I took it off the charger on Wednesday morning and haven't plugged in since. I'm at 20% at 1:30pm Saturday. That's actually better than my Classic. Note though that I put my phone in airplane mode at bedtime, which does save some juice.

The display is very nice. Clear, sharp, beautiful. The size is good, though it's also the largest I've ever actually had.

The elephant in the room is performance. So many people became negative because of the 625 SoC. I'm happy to say I haven't had any problems, except for one glitch the first night where I think the Notable app caused the phone to become almost completely unresponsive. Apps wouldn't launch at all, though I could navigate the UI and launch settings. *Resolved by a reboot. I haven't tried using Notable since then. Other than that, it's been great. No real problems and I've been using the hub.

Speaking of the hub, android hub is just not as good as BB10. I kinda figured on that though. The integration is just not the same, and neither is the configurability. Still better than stock Gmail and email clients, *which come to think of it the KeyOne doesn't come with the regular android email client, only hub and Gmail.*

BlackBerry calendar seems to have CalDAV, but it's not synching with my server. Hmm.

I'm on T-Mobile and WiFi calling works a lot better on the KeyOne than it did on the Classic. And it's a good thing too, because I continue to get poor reception at home. Reception elsewhere seems to be good though, better than Classic. I also saw VoLTE switched on but no idea if it works.

All in all I'm still loving the KeyOne, and I wouldn't go back to the Classic. I can't imagine giving up the advantages of larger screen, faster performance, tracking keypad, and a well-supported OS.*

By the way, it's now 2:15 pm, and I'm at 16%. :D Battery saver mode is about to kick in. I think I'll wrap this up. For all the negativity we had on the forums, this is still a great phone, and a good swan song for BlackBerry-designed phones.

Estimated 10 hours left. Screen on time: 6h53m.

Swan song or bellwether to investors that this BB world should be preserved and developed? ;) Happy you're enjoying it. I haven't had this much fun on a phone since I got a blackberry pearl. For one handed operation on a subway, I recommend creating a fingerprint sensor for each thumb and to edit your long and short touch function so you can open up all your favorite apps on the fly. I recommend opening an app and then then thinking "what is the natural association" A, B , D, G whatever and setting it. And if it's already taken by a preset function, delete it and create your own. For example, A is programmed to go to contacts. That makes no sense to me. It now goes to Amazon for short press on mine and Audible for long press.

Agree about being able to expand on the swiping and control feature on the keyboard. nice idea.

Originally Posted by keyboardweeb

One question I have is if it's possible to use the keyboard to move the cursor like the trackpad on the Classic does. I'll have to check if turning off gestures enables that. I think it'd be more useful when writing long blocks of text than the swiping.*

It doesn't. That sucks. Really sucks.

.

Try doubleclick keyboard, then swipe

Quick double-touch, not click

Originally Posted by keyboardweeb

I bought my Classic almost two years ago. I bought my KEYone on the 30th. TLDR: I'm hooked.

The keyboard is smaller and less sculpted, yes, but I'm getting along. In fact, even though I'm at home with my beloved Model M within reach, I'm typing this on the KeyOne. I need the practice to get used to this, lol. I sometimes hit the sym key when I go for the m, for one. I also sometimes accidentally swipe on the keyboard and do something funny, or hit a capacitive button. I'm slowly learning to use swipe up completion.*

Physically, the phone is easy to hold and type on. I can't really type one-handed, but I was always terrible at that. The aluminum sides are a bit slick though. The back is not as nice as the Classic's. Aesthetically, the phone is nice. The silver highlights are nicely done imo, and make the phone stand out from the crowd of boring black slabs.

One question I have is if it's possible to use the keyboard to move the cursor like the trackpad on the Classic does. I'll have to check if turning off gestures enables that. I think it'd be more useful when writing long blocks of text than the swiping.*

It doesn't. That sucks. Really sucks.

The battery life is great, as expected. I took it off the charger on Wednesday morning and haven't plugged in since. I'm at 20% at 1:30pm Saturday. That's actually better than my Classic. Note though that I put my phone in airplane mode at bedtime, which does save some juice.

The display is very nice. Clear, sharp, beautiful. The size is good, though it's also the largest I've ever actually had.

The elephant in the room is performance. So many people became negative because of the 625 SoC. I'm happy to say I haven't had any problems, except for one glitch the first night where I think the Notable app caused the phone to become almost completely unresponsive. Apps wouldn't launch at all, though I could navigate the UI and launch settings. *Resolved by a reboot. I haven't tried using Notable since then. Other than that, it's been great. No real problems and I've been using the hub.

Speaking of the hub, android hub is just not as good as BB10. I kinda figured on that though. The integration is just not the same, and neither is the configurability. Still better than stock Gmail and email clients, *which come to think of it the KeyOne doesn't come with the regular android email client, only hub and Gmail.*

BlackBerry calendar seems to have CalDAV, but it's not synching with my server. Hmm.

I'm on T-Mobile and WiFi calling works a lot better on the KeyOne than it did on the Classic. And it's a good thing too, because I continue to get poor reception at home. Reception elsewhere seems to be good though, better than Classic. I also saw VoLTE switched on but no idea if it works.

All in all I'm still loving the KeyOne, and I wouldn't go back to the Classic. I can't imagine giving up the advantages of larger screen, faster performance, tracking keypad, and a well-supported OS.*

By the way, it's now 2:15 pm, and I'm at 16%. :D Battery saver mode is about to kick in. I think I'll wrap this up. For all the negativity we had on the forums, this is still a great phone, and a good swan song for BlackBerry-designed phones.

Estimated 10 hours left. Screen on time: 6h53m.

I suggest Business Calendar. Way better then what is installed as default.

Originally Posted by only5t

Quick double-touch, not click

Ah so. That does work. Thanks.

One thing I forgot to mention in all that: for the first couple hours using it, I kept trying to use the keyboard to highlight and select apps. I couldn't believe how natural it felt to do that, in ways it never did on the Classic's dedicated trackpad. Unfortunately, the KeyOne doesn't do it. Maybe because android just doesn't have the concept of such a thing (anymore, anyway. It used to. Sidekick 4G anyone?) Or maybe just laziness. It would have been a great thing to have.

That thing with apps not launching happened again. Not sure what causes that. Annoying but at least it reboots quicker than the Classic.

I've not noticed any call quality issues but LTE reception seems to be pretty poor when I'm at home, possibly poorer than with the Classic. Hmmm.