It’s no secret that BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion, was once the world’s largest smartphone maker. However, after the arrival of Apple and its iPhone, it was no longer enough to keep up with competitors.
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In 2016, the company decided to focus exclusively on its own software and licensed production under the Chinese TCL. At that time, the iconic BlackBerry phones with a hardware keyboard did not disappear from store shelves.
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For example, the manufacturer tried to impress the KeyOne model. But you will know the differences from standard smartphones as soon as you see the front of this device. In addition to the touch screen with a diagonal of 4.5 inches and a resolution of 1620 x 1080 pixels, it also features a classic hardware keyboard, which occupies about a quarter of the entire front.
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It is a miniature keyboard, which is used, for example, by laptop owners. Of course, it is not possible to write with all ten fingers on it due to its small size, but even so, typing individual characters should be much faster than in the case of a software solution.
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In addition, the keyboard is multifunctional, as the individual buttons together form a large touch area. With its help, it is then possible to control the phone similarly to the touchpad on notebooks, for example, in long documents, scroll with two fingers at a time.
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BlackBerry KeyOne
Photo: manufacturer’s archive
But neither KeyOne nor other models broke sales records, which culminated in TCL’s decision to end production in early 2020. This means that we have not seen any new devices in the last two years.
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On Tuesday, the servers will be shut down due to the end of support. With the entire BlackBerry ecosystem built on cloud services, it’s basically the definitive nail in this manufacturer’s coffin.
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In practice, this means that it will not even be possible to make phone calls with smartphones of this brand, it will not be possible to send SMS messages and data transmissions should be considerably limited. Calls to emergency numbers won’t even work.
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