BlackBerry Mobile, which is actually TCL Communications, which makes Alcatel phones, has done an admirable job furthering the legacy of BlackBerry’s transition from BB10 to Android. Not only does the KEYone sport the same security enhancements, including Hardware Root of Trust and Verified Boot as all BlackBerry phones released in the past couple of years, but it runs Android 7.1.1 out of the box, and promises to receive monthly security updates. To say that the KEYone is one of the most secure phones on the market right now would probably not be an overstatement.

But the KEYone is also inherently divisive, willfully limiting its potential customer base with a hardware keyboard that harkens back to a time, between six and 10 years ago, when not only were BlackBerrys essential tools for millions of people, but few could envision typing on anything but that miniaturized version of the desktop keyboard.

Times have changed, and people have adjusted. Well, most people. This phone is for the others, and for them it’s almost perfect.