TCL president Cistulli hints that big news about the BlackBerry KEYone is coming next week

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If you've been waiting for news about the BlackBerry KEYone, it seems that something of importance will be released next week. TCL president and GM Steve Cistulli said in a tweet disseminated today that the company will have "some more KEY news coming your way next week." The KEYone will be the last BlackBerry handset designed in-house by BlackBerry. As most of you know, the company has entered into licensing agreements with three firms, including TCL, to design, produce, market and sell BlackBerry branded handsets. BlackBerry  provides the software and collects royalties.

Originally slated for an April launch, late last month BlackBerry CEO John Chen said that the BlackBerry KEYone will start going into production at the end of April. Earlier this month, U.K. retailer Clove said that the KEYone would be launched in Europe on May 5th at a price equivalent to $640 USD. The news that is coming out next week could have something to do with the U.S. release of the phone.

To refresh your memory, the BlackBerry KEYone features a 4.5-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1080 x 1620. The Snapdragon 625 chipset is under the hood containing an octa-core 2GHz CPU, and the Adreno 506 GPU. 3GB of RAM is inside along with 32GB of native storage. A 2TB capacity microSD slot is available to those seeking additional storage. The 12MP rear-facing camera is equipped with an aperture of f/2.0, and there is a front-facing 8MP snapper on board to shoot selfies. A fingerprint scanner is cleverly embedded in the keyboard's space bar, and keeping the lights on is a 3505mAh battery. Android 7.1 is pre-installed.

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We would be amiss if we didn't point out that the picture attached to Cistulli's tweet contains a bit of the device's retail box. It's not much, but we can see that it is a black container with the BlackBerry KEYone logo embossed on top in raised letters. It does give the impression that the KEYone is being marketed as a premium device.

source: @SteveCistulli via MobileSyrup

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