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The year 2008 was a different period. It was time to try new things. Katy Perry kissed a girl and loved her, the United States elected their first African-American president, and many traded their flip phones for their first smart phones.
In 2008, it probably meant a BlackBerry. was introduced in the summer of 2007, its dominance was not won in advance. By the end of 2008, Apple had sold about 10 million iPhones, far from the 45 million to 75 million sold per quarter in recent days. BlackBerry had 14 million users and had generated $ 6 billion in revenue for the year. People were addicted to their smartphones, which were (a little) affectionately called "CrackBerries" in the mid-2000s.
After the release of the iPhone, BlackBerry's parent, Research in Motion (RIM), was unfazed. the revolutionary device. A tale of the time suggests that RIM founder Mike Lazaridis showed an iPhone to co-CEO Jim Balsillie, who was more concerned about how AT & T was working with Apple on the device than what the elegant competitor could mean for his own business. "All is well, we'll be fine," he would have told Lazaridis
Well, they were not there.
In a few years, the smartphone maker dominating the world has lost everything but one. % of the market for Apple and devices running the Android operating system of Google. In 2016, it stopped producing smartphones, concentrating its activities on software and automotive services. In 2017, it generated approximately $ 1 billion in annual revenues.
But the world loves a story of return. And now, BlackBerry is back
The BlackBerry Key2: a new hope
Like Nokia, another telecom power of the 2000s, BlackBerry now gives its name to another company to build its phones. Unlike Nokia, which has experienced a huge wave of nostalgia on its remastered single phones, the devices that the Chinese TCL company puts under the BlackBerry name feel as useless as BlackBerry's desperate attempts to remain relevant when the iPhone took power. At an event in New York earlier this month, the new BlackBerry Key2 was unveiled. This is the successor of the first BlackBerry manufactured by TCL released in April 2017, the KeyOne. In recent weeks, I've been testing the Key2, trying to determine if there is anything that BlackBerry could bring to the table in 2018, all that could bring it back to its glory days when the We heard the clickety … "
BlackBerry unveiled its first touchscreen phone in 2008, the BlackBerry Storm, and has spent years trying to promote what has made the company look like it. iPhone a reality a box with a small keyboard attached to it. And the Key2, a decade later, is doing the same fight.
The Key2 is actually a small Android smartphone with a small 1.5-inch keyboard attached to the bottom. It does not offer anything that you can not find better on other smartphones – its cameras are poor, its battery is average, the display is nothing special, and it is painfully slow – block the physical keyboard. Even the well-known BlackBerry programs, such as BlackBerry Messenger and the messaging hub, do not offer anything special. (That being said, I could not really test Messenger because, being 2018, I did not have any friends who still use BBM.) Unfortunately, TCL also did not understand a version of BrickBreaker, the game BlackBerry that was almost as addictive as the device itself, in the Key2
For years, many stood on their BlackBerry because they believed that typing on a physical keyboard was far superior to tap a piece of glass. Then Apple App Store has opened the iPhone to other companies and the resulting boom in applications has led to an absolute revolution in the way we use the Internet. Many have chosen an iPhone or an Android just because of the number of apps and services.
Another sequel that nobody wanted
With the Key2, I have access to any application available on the Google Play Store of Android. Using them, I've constantly reminded you how tedious it was to wait for apps to load – and wonder how much a physical keyboard was worth. And after a decade of not using one, I found that it was quite difficult to navigate. The phone also does not have many other modern conveniences that its competitors offer, such as water resistance, wireless charging, or facial recognition security. This is a large, angular phone that does not fit comfortably in your hand or pocket, stabbing you gently while you move, perhaps reminding you of your bad life decisions that led you to use a BlackBerry in 2018.
The Key2's only really thrifty grace is that it costs $ 650. It's a lot less than an iPhone X, a Samsung Galaxy S9 or a Note 8, and a little less than an iPhone 8. But there are other more powerful devices available for about the same price, including the Google Pixel 2 and the OnePlus 6.
In a counterfactual recreation of the story, where BlackBerry still ruled and that Apple had never decided to d & # 39; to enter the phones (and become the richest company in the United States), its flagship phone of 2018 would look like probably the Key2. It's a mutant device that no one really needs, or asked for. But if that was all that was available, we would get by with it. Fortunately, there are many better phones out there today.
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