Expect BlackBerry KeyONE US pricing to be announced this week

TCL Communications‘ Steve Cistulli has been hitting Twitter again with some BlackBerry KeyONE teasers. This time though, it looks pretty clear that the US availability and pricing information for the KeyONE will be announced next week. You can see the tweet below, but considering the phone is resting atop a retail box and we were already expecting a May 5 announcement, joining the dots isn’t so difficult.

Unfortunately, the delay between the KeyONE’s announcement back at MWC 2017 and everything that has happened in between – the LG G6 and Galaxy S8 launches for example – means the KeyONE has a lot more competition now than it would have had earlier in the year. But BlackBerry’s typical audience is not necessarily the same as it is for those other devices, even if the price points are likely going to wind up fairly similar. The KeyONE is openly targeted at enterprise clients, and so it should be.

Unfortunately though, Android fans interested in dipping their toes in the BlackBerry pool will likely have been a little put off by the KeyONE’s high price and mid-range chipset. But there’s no denying the Blackberry KeyONE is one of the more interesting device releases this year. It feels rock solid, has plenty of only-BlackBerry-could-do-it features and is surprisingly nimble and easy to handle at the same time as being easy on the eye. Let’s just hope BlackBerry has an eye toward the average consumer too and puts a US price tag on it that’s reasonable for the hardware package on offer.