The BlackBerry Key2 proves the world no longer needs a physical keyboard by Avery Hartmans on Jun 27, 2018, 9:00 AM Advertisement
 It's 2018. Do people still want a phone with a physical keyboard? That's the question TCL is trying to answer with its new BlackBerry Key2, a $650 smartphone with a 4.5-inch screen and an actual, physical keyboard. I spent about 10 days with the BlackBerry Key2 to test how it compares to other high-end smartphones on the market. I also wanted to see if, as a former BlackBerry user way back when, I still enjoyed using a physical keyboard. Here's what it was like. SEE ALSO: 5 Android phones with futuristic edge-to-edge displays that nobody would ever mistake for an iPhone X First things first: The BlackBerry Key2 is a good-looking phone, and it certainly doesn't look like anything else on the market.  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the look and feel of the BlackBerry Key2. It has a grippy, textured back that feels rugged and vaguely pleasant, and I enjoyed the squared-off edges, chrome details, and overall businesslike aesthetic. Plus, the phone gets great battery life: I typically got about a day and a half out of it before it needed to be charged. TCL says the device is both lighter and slimmer than its predecessor, the BlackBerry KeyOne, but it's hard to tell. Compared to my aluminum iPhone 6s, the Key2 feels notably heavier. The BlackBerry Key2 has a 4.5-inch LCD display, which is a hair smaller than the 4.7-inch display on the iPhone 6s. But it's a physically larger phone, thanks to the keyboard at the bottom of the device. That being said, I have relatively small hands, and I didn't find the device to be too big for me — in fact, at about six inches long, it's likely to be the perfect size for most people. One other note on the display: while I found it to be sharp and incredibly vivid, it doesn't get very bright. This wasn't an issue the majority of the time, but I sometimes found myself squinting at the screen, even with the brightness turned all the way up.
There are a few other design choices that stand out, for better or worse. There were things that I liked about the design, and things that I really hated. For instance, the BlackBerry Key2 does have a headphone jack, although it's located at the top of the device rather than the bottom like most people are used to. And while the phone may have physical keys, it doesn't have a physical home button. Instead, a digital home button is located above the keyboard. This is all well and good, but it's going to be a major adjustment for most people. Since most smartphones have a physical or digital home button at the bottom of the phone, that's where I automatically pressed when I was trying to hit the home button. But that's where the keyboard's space bar is, which does not double as a home button (it does have a dual purpose though — more on that in a minute). Nine times out of 10, I would press the space bar first before remembering where the home button was located. For me, it will probably take several weeks of using the phone to get out of that habit.
The keyboard's space bar doubles as a fingerprint scanner, but it doesn't do a great job.  I was excited to try the fingerprint scanner on the BlackBerry Key2, because I loved how subtly it was built into the phone's design. The scanner lives inside the space bar, which means you should just be able to press it lightly to unlock your phone each time. It's a great idea in theory, but it isn't very practical in real life. The space bar is a long, narrow rectangle, and it's not ideal for capturing fingerprints. About 80% of the time, it took me several tries to get my phone unlocked using the scanner. If you didn't place your finger just right on the space bar, it refused to open your phone. This grew tiresome after a while, and I eventually just resorted to using my passcode each time.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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