The First 2 Days - Addressing My Own Pre-Ownership Concerns

I've been a BB fan since my Bold 9000>9800>9900>Q10>Passport>Priv (for a week before returning due to build quality). I read through the CrackBerry forums regularly, but I rarely post. My positive impression of this phone compels me to share.

I was one of the lucky few who were able to order the KEYOne Tuesday night (thanks CrackBerry forums!) from Amazon.com with Prime shipping. Received the phone mid-afternoon on Friday. There was no doubt in my mind I was going to buy this device, but I did have a few concerns: LCD v AMOLED, always-visible capacitive buttons, RAM, location of power button, and inability to use a custom launcher while retaining keyboard shortcuts. None of these have been, in my experience, a problem.

Battery: I had no concern about the phone's battery performance, but no "review" would be complete without mentioning the feature topping most reviewer's lists. I am a moderate user. Social media, text, e-mail, a few short videos, and playing music make up the majority of my daily usage. I took my KEYOne off the charger at 10:45 this morning and now at 7:30pm, I still have 70% left. I had forgotten how nice it was not to worry about charging my phone at least once in the middle of each day.

LCD: There might very well be a batch of phones with screens not functioning as intended, i.e. not bright enough, but that simply hasn't been the case for me. I have turned on Adaptive Brightness and set the brightness scale to its lowest setting. I have not once thought, "I really miss the AMOLED display." Maybe that will change in some really bright sunlight, but at this time, I'm completely satisfied with the screen quality.

Capacitive Buttons: My first reaction to the location and prominence of these buttons was not favorable. I thought their always-on presence would bother me. Instead, I find them to be convenient. I don't use the back button much because I use a gesture (via All-in-One Gestures) on the right side of the screen. The home and recent buttons are, then, my most-used buttons and in just the right place for comfortable thumb use.

RAM: I'm coming from a Galaxy S6 Edge, which also sports 3GB of RAM. If there has been any lagginess on my KEYOne, I simply haven't noticed it. I'm the type to reset my phone every morning as a habit, so I could see performance, perhaps, lacking over several days of constant use.

Power Button: Probably the silliest of my initial "concerns." Coming from the S6, I was accustomed to using the power button to put the screen to sleep. With the KeyOne's placement on the upper-left of the phone, I knew it would be awkward to reach. But now, I just double-tap the screen to sleep. Problem solved. Moving on.

Launcher: There are a few features I ever so slightly miss from Nova launcher, such as resizing icons, but i have been able to replace (with Zooper Widget) most of the Nova gestures I don't get with the BB launcher. For example, I like to slide my thumb down the home screen to reveal notifications because reaching to the top of the phone to pull down is a stretch. Such is the beauty of Android and its customizability.

I certainly don't blame folks for being frustrated and angry at the so-called roll-out of the phone. That said, if you wanted the phone pre-launch and didn't get one, I think you will find the wait to be worth it.