[ominaxe]

24 Hours in (AKA Anticipation: Naiveté)

After playing with the KEYone for the first 24 hours, I think it's fair to give an assessment of the physical features of it.

Note:
My previous keyboarded phone experiences are with the OG Passport, Q10, and 9900.
Also, I'm 5'7" with average sized hands.

Pros:
-It's prettier than I thought it would be.
-The keyboard feels great to press and much better than expected. More travel and easier to press than the Passport and bouncier than the Q10 (though not as easy to press)
-Keyboard size is great. Because it's so compact I can fly on this bad boy.
-Fingerprint reader is saweet and efficient. I love unlocking the phone and having my fingers ready to go exactly where I need them to be.
-Battery is gonna be fantastic: unboxed it at 54%, screen on the entire time, downloading updates and essential apps, I was at 30% when I finally decided to charge it after 5 hours.
-Build quality, despite all the lifts I've read about, feels very good and solid. Though the keys when pulled on look like loose teeth about to fall off at any minute.
-Swiping left and right on the keyboard is nice and smooth (though not as smooth as the Passport).
-Camera takes some great shots. Dark shots are meh, but still better than all other BlackBerrys I've had.

Cons:
-Swiping up and down on the keyboard is bumpy and not smooth at all.
-Keys are too rounded and smooth when typing -- even more so than the Passport. It doesn't have the same precise and crisp texture that the 9900 or Q10 has.
-Top heavy and way too tall. Dealing with the device is cumbersome. In many ways it's worse than the unwieldy Passport. Even though it's lighter than the Passport, it often feels heavier because of its length. During typing it's fine, but when throwing in other motions, it gets tough (this happens a lot). Due to its size, I feel I am not focusing my thumbing on the keyboard because I have to hold the device in the middle; like it's a touch screen phone with an added keyboard, not a keyboard phone with an added touch screen. I badly want to take a saw to this thing and hack off the top inch and a half (3.5 cm)
-Screen is too bright at night. The Passport was so much better in this respect. Outside it's fine, though.
-The capacitive Android keys are awful. Not only do I have to hit them multiple times to register, they're too close to the keyboard, and too close to the screen/swipe up predictions.
-Signal is slightly worse than the other BlackBerrys.

Neutral:
-Keyboard makes interesting noises. Every now and again it makes a twang sound while typing and the spacebar is louder than the others.
-convenience key location is not super convenient as it's pretty low for my typing hand posture. On the other end the power button is quite high.
-I miss the dual buttoned volume rocker. One bar feels confusing to me now and I need to feel the whole thing to make sure I'm going up or down.
-Screen quality is adequate. For me, that's perfect. I don't need ultra crisp septuple HD screens. I just need something like looks decent and doesn't kill my battery.
-Not as grippy as I thought it would be. If reviewers thought this is grippier than other phones, I'd hate to try and hold an S8.

Overall ranking:
Keyboard (texture, size, feel):
9900, K1, Q10, Passport
Handfeel
9900, Q10, Passport, K1
Battery
K1, Passport, Q10, 9900
Screen quality
Passport, K1, Q10, 9900
Camera
K1, Passport, Q10, 9900

If this phone was shorter and without the capacitive buttons it would be absolutely peeerfect.

I'll give the rest of my thoughts of the phone after much more time with it (I need it).

[donnation]

Nice review, thanks!

[eldeadache]

Install Twilight to solve screen too bright at night issue.

[Lefty724]

Great review!

I agree with most your thoughts as well. Except my Cons list is much shorter lol.

[usamitch]

It's to difficult to give up my passport.

[europolska00]

Balanced review. But my Android buttons respond perfectly fine all the time.

[ominaxe]

Repost. :X

[bakron1]

Nice balanced review and thanks for sharing.

[ominaxe]

One week in (aka The Transition Period: Denial)

Before I talk about the software and phone use as a whole, some added hardware notes:

-The charger is garbage. The chord is so short, and the USB is plugged in at the end, not the side, which is a waste of space and a pain when plugging in behind a desk or something.
-I wish the notification LED was bigger. It's bright, but not big enough.
-Call quality is great, speaker and headphones are not bad at all.

Now, onto phone usage from a software point of view one week in.

Disclaimer:
I have never owned an Android device before. This is coming from someone who, since 2008, has used only BBOS5/6/7, WP7/8, iOS on an iPad and BBOS10.

Pros
-Ctrl+v,c, a ... Finally. The feature I wanted badly in previous BBOSs makes it onto Android.
-My apps that I need with no workarounds ... finally.
-Apps that I did have actually work properly ... finally. Android apps crashing or running ridiculously slow on BlackBerry no longer have problems.
-Very quick keyboard shortcuts/search. It's got my favorite part of the 9900 here. So much faster than BB10 and much closer to OS7 (as long as apps are loaded in the RAM).
-The phone in general is quick. Apps launch quickly, and going between apps is also pretty quick.
-I don't know what magic is used for the way it runs multiple apps, but it manages to sip battery, especially when it's locked and not in use.
-WiFi calling works right out of the box (thanks T-Mobile).
-Swipe up widgets are sweet, efficient, space savers.
-Quick access to the swipe down settings everywhere just like BB10.
-Hub has some pretty neat gestures (I like the slide to delete/file) and works pretty well for not being baked in.
-Double tap to open/close is great. I never have to touch that lock button that's about a mile away from my finger.
-It works. It does what I need it to do as a phone.

Before I go into cons I have to say that, as a first time user, Android as an OS is a disconnected mess. I've attempted to explain what using Android has been like to me in an analogy:

Android makes me feel like I'm trying to do a simple task, but makes it unnecessarily complicated. I want to open a locked door, but somehow have sprouted 7 extra arms. They're all trying to do the same thing better than every other arm. They keep getting in each other's way and making a mess of things.

The door is locked, too, so to open it, all my arms have to fumble through a key-chain that has 30 keys attached to it, but only 3 of them work. And that door? It's a multicolored ugly piece of **** that upon opening, I realize is not even connected to the house that I was trying to get into in the first place.

So now for the cons, hold onto your butts:

-I badly badly miss the gestures for navigating. The Android buttons are so inefficient. Not to mention you have to press them 2 times to register most of the time. Because of this, the keyboard feels disconnected from the phone, gestures meant you were naturally going to be pressing the screen. Buttons means your thumb is going down, then up, then down, then up.

-Something that doesn't help are the horrible interfaces with too many things focused on the top of the phone. You would think that a communications device with a keyboard would opt for things to be close to your thumbs so you can quickly do things; a horizontally functioning phone rather than a vertical one. Nope! This shows just how little care goes into productivity on Android. Example: I want to quickly see my contacts, so I throw up my productivity slider and press contacts. If I want to see them all, why can't I just press it again instead of reaching up to the top? Clear all multi-task windows? At the top. Access settings? At the top. go to the search bar in pretty much all places and apps? At the top .. I get notifications up top that I can respond to? Long reach up to the top to start typing, want to send it with enter. Nope? Gotta reach back up there to press that send button. I swear, if someone added up all the fractions of seconds Android and iOS users reached unnecessarily far up and down from their keyboard, you would have a full week (depending on the frequency of use). It's like thumb Olympics here and I'm stuck doing laps back and forth in a pool. This wouldn't be so bad if the phone wasn't so ******* tall.

-Why the heck do search bars not erase from before?! It's everywhere from settings, to hub, to search. I go back to do a new search, but my previous search is still there that I have to erase. Thank goodness for alt+a.

-I hate the color scheme. Nothing seems unified. Different colors for different menus, different colors for different menus, different colors for different apps, battery saver changes the home page colors, different people have different color themes. It's unified in its ugly multi-coloredness.

-Doing some simple tasks is horribly inefficient. For example, turning off the mobile network is a pain: With BlackBerry just turn it off with a simple press. Android? Press airplane mode, wait, then enable WiFi. What if I wanted Bluetooth and NFC on, Android? F you!

-Android settings menus need a SERIOUS overhaul. BlackBerry, please fix it. They make iOS's settings look good, which is still miles behind BlackBerry. It's like a maze figuring them out and is so convoluted. Menus within menus within menus within apps within menus ... yet somehow the convenience key gets it's own menu category with one function?

-BlackBerry allows me to uninstall many of its services I don't want to use. Google, why can't I delete Youtube? News and Weather? Duo?

-I am bombarded constantly with permissions for everything. Some apps just don't work without certain permissions. Why does WeChat (a messaging app) require location to function?! At least on BlackBerry only the function that uses a certain permission wouldn't work.

-Long pressing for capital letters takes way too long. Swipe to delete is also slow. With the speed of the regular backspace, it almost seems faster to just not use it.

-Productivity tab only shows new emails and texts?! (Which still seldom show up because I'm always looking at my hub). There are no tasks on it as well? Nice work! I really don't even see the point of it right now. So much for peeking on Android looking better and better. Oh, and the font is comically large.

-App gestures and menus are hit and miss. There is no unification with anything on this phone. Some apps allow you to swipe into menus or go back, some don't. I really badly miss going back into the hub with a swipe and all the BlackBerry apps that allowed you to go back with a swipe.

-I listen to music a lot and really miss the next song long press, middle button pause.

-I really dislike that bar showing everything up top that's always there, makes things look cluttered. I like that BlackBerry hid it unless you needed to see it with a quick gesture. That was an efficient use of space.

-I don't like the dual notifications (I'm not talking about emails or anything like that, those are disabled). I'm talking about system notifications. I get system notifications on the pull down on Android. On BB10, those were also on the hub like everything else I needed to see. I feel like I'm being pulled in too many directions.

-Android is unstable. The phone, especially the app button get clunky and laggy every few days and requires a restart. Another great perk of BB10 gone, which never needed a restart.

-I realize that some of the issues can be solved with applications, which is another issue for me altogether. I really don't want to fool around with apps, I don't want to spend my time in confusing settings, I don't want to constantly have to work with the phone to make it to my liking. I want the phone to work for me as is with very little fiddling. It's one reason I adored BlackBerry: everything worked right out of the box and I never had to change anything. Doing something better on the phone should already be in the OS. No Docs to go? I don't want to use a cloud based document editor for my writing, thank you very much. I need to download a currency exchange app? Converter app? Travel app? A better way to access my drop down bar? **** that.

Neutral
-It's pretty sweet that my maps tell me when there is traffic in my area. It's creepy and unnecessary when it tells me to take pictures of the restaurant I'm in. Uh, no thanks there, Google. **** head.

-In general it's very nice that the phone has access to things to make my life easier, but also makes me a bit uncomfortable. Every time Google does something nice or automated for me I'm like, 'Hey, thanks ... wait a minute..'.

-I have discovered a trick where I swipe up from the square and circle Android buttons to try and simulate gestures from BB10. It's alright, but I still want a quicker way to the hub (not the convenience key which I have set as hub but never seem to use because of its crappy location and extra movement required for a press).

Personally, as an OS, I prefer BB10. I was really looking forward to this phone to be BlackBerry's savior, a phone that would bring all the great things from Android and BB10 and modernize it, but it did both kinda halfassed.

I came to Android with open arms and Android punched me in the gut. It doesn't seem that this phone wants to be a savior now. Far from it, actually. But the truth is, I have no choice and I think that's a real shame.

Even after 5 years on BB10, it still made me smile with its efficiency, simple hassle free use, and nice compact tight size. When I first tried BB10 after my short stint on WP7/8, I was never frustrated, in fact, I was wowed. Even iOS didn't offend me too much. But Android refuses to wow me and seems to actually be working against me a lot.

I will update my thought when I'm out of this transition stage and using the phone more as a phone and not struggling to set it up and leave my beloved BlackBerry.

[ominaxe]

If it works for you, that's great!

[anon(5364777)]

Some points are so true. The settings are is truly a maze...it has been a long time since I had to google where to find certain options in a phone.

[ominaxe]

3 Months in (aka For a Long Time, Not a Good Time: Acceptance)

After 3 months with the KEYone, I believe I am qualified to give my final thoughts on it. I’ll keep this relatively short as many things from my previous posts on this thread still holds pretty much true. I’ve summed up general pros and cons I’ve had and continued my 3 month thoughts further below.

Pros
-Fast (enough for me)
-Great Keyboard and shortcuts
-Hub is still the best means to communication, even if its implementation is halfassed on Android
-Battery life is killer.
-Swipe typing is a nice feature for fast one handed typing
-Does what I need it to do.

Cons
-The phone is too ******* tall and cumbersome.
-Android’s menus and OS is archaic (capacitive keys, android menu buttons, poorly placed software buttons, settings, widgets, multi-tasking, app-centricity, and un-unified)
-Android’s notification shade is nowhere near as good as BlackBerry Hub and still gets in my way
-App-centricity ruins phones
-Odd button placement (non-convenient convenience key, lock button too high, no 3-button volume rocker)
-Keyboard functionality is missing in some areas (enter to quick send, keyboard shortcuts within apps that don’t use them)
-BB Hub has limited functionality and is basically a glorified shortcut app for non-emails.
-Apps have limited functionality compared to BBOS (calculator had tips/converter, travel app had money converter/weather etc.)
-More useful USB-C features needed (video out)
-Speaker is not as good as I previously thought

Neutral
-The build quality doesn’t seem to be stellar for most, but has been problem free for me even after numerous accidents
-I wish it had a removable battery

The 3 months with this phone has felt like a long time, and if the old adage is true, it seems like I haven’t been having fun as time hasn’t been exactly flying. The truth of the matter is, I haven’t been enjoying the phone, but it also hasn’t been a horrible experience after the initial jolt of a new Android experience. Truth is, it’s just been plain boring.

That’s exactly what this phone is; it’s boring. It’s just a phone. It’s an app-centric, inefficiently laid out clunky feeling phone (not slow, it just feels like everything is disconnected and the menus are horrible). It works, it just does nothing new or interesting. It has failed in attempting to bring new BlackBerry-esque features to it that made me rethink the app-based paradigm that BBOS10 attempted to change with everything set up through the hub.

I tried to make this phone work with what Blackberry has given me. I tried the swipe up widgets, I tried the productivity tab. They are utterly useless. I don’t even understand why there are swipe up widgets as the apps launch so quickly anyway, why would you make a gesture to launch a half-baked version of the app? Quick looks are already possible by just launching the app.

The productivity tab also holds nothing of value as it shows limited information with limited functionality. I believe it tried to be like the always active hub was in BBOS10, but it failed. Want to see your ALL emails, just hit the hub button (whichever you have yours set as). Want to see a limited list of your emails that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t? Swipe over and hit your mail button on the productivity bar. This goes with all the other functionality as well.

To make this phone work for me, I basically turned it into my old 9900 I used with a minimalist theme. It only had a background with a clock on it. There are multiple shortcut keys to change important settings and of course the app shortcut keys to launch apps or contact people without ever needing any extra steps or swipes. I can be basically anywhere on my phone or change important settings in one click of my keyboard from the home page. I got rid of all the things BlackBerry offered and thought would make my phone use more streamlined, and set up my phone like my old phone from 2012 to make it better. That’s a problem.

I don’t hate the phone, I just don’t think it does anything new or interesting. I like that it works like my 9900 which I enjoyed, but I don’t like that it’s running on a clunky feeling OS that is decently fast, but needs to be restarted every week or so when it feels wonky (this is 2017). I also wish I didn’t have to launch multiple apps when the BBOS10 hub had access to, and functionality all in one spot.
… most of all, I just don’t like carrying and using something that feels an inch and a half too tall.

Rating: 7/10

[anon(8650998)]

I agree with almost everything ominaxe has said. I've had the K1 since it came out and before it had a Z10, Classic, PP and Priv. I've experienced the same frustrations with Android, and in fact have moved my Sim card to my Classic for use as my main phone. Probably 90% of my use is as a communication device, and as such I still think the Classic is the best phone ever made. For phone calls, emails and texts it has no equal in my opinion. You can tell that it and BB10 were designed for business and efficiency. The PP runs a close 2nd, being beaten out only by the Classic's wonderful form factor.

Having said that, the K1 is a beautiful piece of work. I carry it along with the Classic for those times when it's just handier as a Web browser and app user. Also have all my music on it. With so much public wifi around (at least in my city), as well as using the Classic hotspot when I have to, the two phones make great companions and will do anything you need.

I'm hoping that BB will address as many of the shortcomings of the K1 as they can. If upcoming software updates get it closer to the Classic I'll move back to it full-time.

[evodevo69]

I agree with almost everything ominaxe has said. I've had the K1 since it came out and before it had a Z10, Classic, PP and Priv. I've experienced the same frustrations with Android, and in fact have moved my Sim card to my Classic for use as my main phone. Probably 90% of my use is as a communication device, and as such I still think the Classic is the best phone ever made. For phone calls, emails and texts it has no equal in my opinion. You can tell that it and BB10 were designed for business and efficiency. The PP runs a close 2nd, being beaten out only by the Classic's wonderful form factor.

Having said that, the K1 is a beautiful piece of work. I carry it along with the Classic for those times when it's just handier as a Web browser and app user. Also have all my music on it. With so much public wifi around (at least in my city), as well as using the Classic hotspot when I have to, the two phones make great companions and will do anything you need.

I'm hoping that BB will address as many of the shortcomings of the K1 as they can. If upcoming software updates get it closer to the Classic I'll move back to it full-time.

They're not going to - at least from the software side of things.

The partners definitely addressed the shortcomings of the Priv and DTEK devices hardware side but software side BB has not changed lol.

[anon(8650998)]

How do you know with such certainty what BB's plans are?

[ominaxe]

I would love to exclusively use BlackBerry as my daily driver, but the problem is I need certain apps for communication that BlackBerry just doesn't have.

I just really hope BlackBerry and TCL fixes some of these issues. I hope TCL makes a mini version of the keyTWO and I hope BlackBerry adds some gestures and makes the hub more useful.

[mrsimon]

gonna wait longer before giving a review. But I really like the keyboard experience and all the functions. big phones are the norm and quality quality is better than expected. I recommend it for PKB fans.

[ominaxe]

gonna wait longer before giving a review. But I really like the keyboard experience and all the functions. big phones are the norm and quality quality is better than expected. I recommend it for PKB fans.

I feel like if you're a PKB fan, you kinda HAVE to love the KEYone. Haha. I do like the keyboard, just not the size of the rest of the phone.

[z10Jobe]

3 Months in (aka For a Long Time, Not a Good Time: Acceptance)

After 3 months with the KEYone, I believe I am qualified to give my final thoughts on it. I’ll keep this relatively short as many things from my previous posts on this thread still holds pretty much true. I’ve summed up general pros and cons I’ve had and continued my 3 month thoughts further below.

Pros
-Fast (enough for me)
-Great Keyboard and shortcuts
-Hub is still the best means to communication, even if its implementation is halfassed on Android
-Battery life is killer.
-Does what I need it to do.

Cons
-The phone is too ******* tall and cumbersome.
-Android’s menus and OS is archaic (capacitive keys, android menu buttons, poorly placed software buttons, settings, widgets, multi-tasking, app-centricity, and un-unified)
-Android’s notification shade is nowhere near as good as BlackBerry Hub and still gets in my way
-App-centricity ruins phones
-Odd button placement (non-convenient convenience key, lock button too high, no 3-button volume rocker)
-Keyboard functionality is missing in some areas (enter to quick send, keyboard shortcuts within apps that don’t use them)
-BB Hub has limited functionality and is basically a glorified shortcut app for non-emails.
-Apps have limited functionality compared to BBOS (calculator had tips/converter, travel app had money converter/weather etc.)
-More useful USB-C features needed (video out)
-Speaker is not as good as I previously thought

Neutral
-The build quality doesn’t seem to be stellar for most, but has been problem free for me even after numerous accidents
-I wish it had a removable battery

The 3 months with this phone has felt like a long time, and if the old adage is true, it seems like I haven’t been having fun as time hasn’t been exactly flying. The truth of the matter is, I haven’t been enjoying the phone, but it also hasn’t been a horrible experience after the initial jolt of a new Android experience. Truth is, it’s just been plain boring.

That’s exactly what this phone is; it’s boring. It’s just a phone. It’s an app-centric, inefficiently laid out clunky feeling phone (not slow, it just feels like everything is disconnected and the menus are horrible). It works, it just does nothing new or interesting. It has failed in attempting to bring new BlackBerry-esque features to it that made me rethink the app-based paradigm that BBOS10 attempted to change with everything set up through the hub.

I tried to make this phone work with what Blackberry has given me. I tried the swipe up widgets, I tried the productivity tab. They are utterly useless. I don’t even understand why there are swipe up widgets as the apps launch so quickly anyway, why would you make a gesture to launch a half-baked version of the app? Quick looks are already possible by just launching the app.

The productivity tab also holds nothing of value as it shows limited information with limited functionality. I believe it tried to be like the always active hub was in BBOS10, but it failed. Want to see your ALL emails, just hit the hub button (whichever you have yours set as). Want to see a limited list of your emails that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t? Swipe over and hit your mail button on the productivity bar. This goes with all the other functionality as well.

To make this phone work for me, I basically turned it into my old 9900 I used with a minimalist theme. It only had a background with a clock on it. There are multiple shortcut keys to change important settings and of course the app shortcut keys to launch apps or contact people without ever needing any extra steps or swipes. I can be basically anywhere on my phone or change important settings in one click of my keyboard from the home page. I got rid of all the things BlackBerry offered and thought would make my phone use more streamlined, and set up my phone like my old phone from 2012 to make it better. That’s a problem.

I don’t hate the phone, I just don’t think it does anything new or interesting. I like that it works like my 9900 which I enjoyed, but I don’t like that it’s running on a clunky feeling OS that is decently fast, but needs to be restarted every week or so when it feels wonky (this is 2017). I also wish I didn’t have to launch multiple apps when the BBOS10 hub had access to, and functionality all in one spot.
… most of all, I just don’t like carrying and using something that feels an inch and a half too tall.

Rating: 7/10

1.5 months in, I agree with your review but might give it a 7.5 /10, because the hardware is quite good.

Posted via CB10

[ominaxe]

The hardware is good and well made, I just can't stand the size and feel of it.

[Frank Costanza]

I've enjoyed reading these reviews.

I can agree with some of it. It also reminded me that I don't think I've ever owned a phone that I didn't have a wish list of improvements I wanted to see.

The good news for me; the K1 has the foundation I want and will keep buying. PKB and Android's app environment. Keep advancing this TCL! It's luscious.

[Frank Costanza]

I've enjoyed reading these reviews.

I can agree with some of it. It also reminded me that I don't think I've ever owned a phone that I didn't have a wish list of improvements I wanted to see.

The good news for me; the K1 has the foundation I want and will keep buying. PKB and Android's app environment. Keep advancing this TCL! It's luscious.

[FF22]

I've enjoyed reading these reviews.

I can agree with some of it. It also reminded me that I don't think I've ever owned a phone that I didn't have a wish list of improvements I wanted to see.

The good news for me; the K1 has the foundation I want and will keep buying. PKB and Android's app environment. Keep advancing this TCL! It's luscious.

Absolutely. I've altered every tent I've ever purchased. They never have IT ALL. Same with phones - we all have different needs and wants. It is fascinating - bigger screen, smaller screen, passport keyboard, narrower keyboard. Toolbelt or "ARE YOU KIDDING!" It goes on and on.

[Tim-ANC]

Absolutely. I've altered every tent I've ever purchased. They never have IT ALL. Same with phones - we all have different needs and wants. It is fascinating - bigger screen, smaller screen, passport keyboard, narrower keyboard. Toolbelt or "ARE YOU KIDDING!" It goes on and on.

Tent?

[duncan86]

A good review - I like that you give the initial impression and then come back with new ones over time. Much more in-depth than the usual media review.

Some of your criticism of Android OS gives me an idea for a thread. I've used Android since 2.0 so I'm pretty familiar with its history and quirks, so I feel like I could help a lot of lifetime Blackberry people find substitutes for functionality they miss from BB10.