BlackBerry KeyOne hands-on—BlackBerry wants $549 for mid-range device

Ron Amadeo

BARCELONA, Spain-Mobile World Congress is starting right now, and BlackBerry is the first out of the gate with a new phone. Remember the "BlackBerry Mercury" from CES? That phone is now the BlackBerry KeyOne, a mid-range QWERTY-bar phone.

The release of the KeyOne marks the end of BlackBerry's days as a hardware manufacturer. While the KeyOne seems like it was designed by BlackBerry, from now on the hardware will be outsourced to TCL, a Chinese company that also owns the Alcatel brand. We've already seen the beginnings of this with the DTEK line, but the KeyOne looks like the last "BlackBerry" BlackBerry phone.

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