BlackBerry KEYone's FCC approval brings the phone one step closer to its U.S. launch

The BlackBerry KEYone is supposed to be released next month, and the phone recently took one giant step toward its U.S. launch by getting certified by the FCC. The KEYone is supposed to be the last 'Berry designed in-house, and the company is using its traditional three-row physical keyboard with a number pad on the left. Some consider the physical QWERTY on the BlackBerry Bold 9000 to be the gold standard, and while BlackBerry might fall short of that with its new phone, it is sure to top the QWERTY that is used on the BlackBerry Priv.

As usual, the FCC documentation doesn't tell us that much about the specs of the phone, although we do have an illustration showing the FCC label and the placement of it. The FCC ID number for the device is 2ACCJN016. With the certification in place, U.S. pre-orders can soon begin. In Germany and in the U.K., some retailers have already started taking reservations for the device.

For those who haven't committed the specs to memory, the BlackBerry KEYone carries a Gorilla Glass 4 protected 4.5-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 (FHD). Powering the phone is the Snapdragon 625 chipset featuring an octa-core 2.0GHz CPU and the Adreno 506 GPU. 3GB of RAM is inside along with 32GB of native storage. A 256GB capacity microSD slot is available for those seeking additional storage.

The 12MP rear camera sensor is the same one found on the Pixel handsets, which is to say that it is the Sony IMX378. The camera offers an f/2.0 aperture and PDAF laser focusing. The 8MP front-facing camera on the KEYone will also contain the same sensor used on the Pixel models, which is the Samsung S5K4H8/Omnivision OV8856. A 3505mAh battery provides long battery life, and Quick Charge 3.0 will fill the juicer half way in just 36 minutes. Android 7.1 is pre-installed.

With the FCC crossed off BlackBerry's things-to-do list, we could hear information about the launch of the handset at any time now.


source: FCC via Crackberry