BlackBerry DTEK60 review

Reports of BlackBerry's demise have clearly been exaggerated, as the business-focused phone maker has just released another high-end Android smartphone, despite claims that it was moving away from hardware towards software.

While the DTEK60 is indeed a new device bearing the BlackBerry name, the production has been outsourced to Chinese firm TCL, which also works with the likes of Alcatel and Vodafone.

It's packing a 5.5-inch QHD screen, a Snapdragon 820 chipset, 4GB of RAM, a fingerprint scanner and 21MP main camera. That’s a strong assortment of specs, and the DTEK60 aims to stand out further by offering a suite of security-oriented apps and features which, according to BlackBerry, make this one of the most secure phones money can buy.

That’s a good thing too, because at $499 (£475, around AU$650) the sheer strength of specs may not be enough to compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and HTC 10.

Key features

• BlackBerry’s first finger scanner
• High-end specs
• A focus on security

With BlackBerry essentially handing over design and construction duties to hardware partner TCL, the DTEK60 feels more like a traditional Android smartphone that any other device to bear the famous BlackBerry logo – including the Priv and DTEK50, both of which also run Android.

BlackBerry is clearly gunning for the same sector of the market that laps up phones like the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and Google Pixel XL, and it shows in the core design and feature list of the DTEK60.

There's no physical keyboard here – BlackBerry is slowly abandoning the one feature that truly set its phones apart from the competition – and in its place we have a roomy, 1440 x 2560 AMOLED screen which measures 5.5-inches from corner to corner.

Inside the phone there's a Snapdragon 820 processor – the same tech that can be found in flagship devices such as the Galaxy S7, Xiaomi Mi5 and LG G5 – as well as 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.

The presence of a microSD card slot means you can add in more memory if you wish. NFC is also included, so you can make contactless payments via Android Pay.

For such a security-centric company it's perhaps surprising that BlackBerry hasn't included a fingerprint scanner on any of its previous phones. There's one on the DTEK60, and the good news is that it's fast, responsive and permits users to unlock the device with a single touch of their digit.

Like so many Android handsets, the DTEK60 has its scanner located on the rear of the device, where your finger naturally lies when you hold it in your hand.

Above the scanner there's a considerable camera bump, which contains the 21MP snapper. It's rocking phase detection autofocus and a dual-tone LED flash, but sadly lacks optical image stabilization. The front-facing camera is an 8MP, fixed focus variant and is perfect for selfies thanks to its LED flash.

While the DTEK60 is running a largely stock version of Android 6.0 – which means it's close to the user experience you'd get from a Nexus (or Pixel) device – it does come with some neat extras which focus on business users and general security, including the DTEK app, which monitors the handset and its running applications, warning you of potential risks and weaknesses.

A 3000mAh battery keeps things ticking over and provides enough stamina to last an entire day. Quick Charge support means you can completely fill the battery from empty in just over an hour, or alternatively you can grab a few hours of battery life by hooking it up for a 15-minute charge.

Design and display

• Bright, high-quality QHD screen
• Metal frame and slippery plastic rear panel
• Handy convenience key

At 6.99mm, the DTEK60 is the thinnest BlackBerry yet. The front of the phone is covered in 2.5D glass, while the rear features hardened plastic and the familiar BlackBerry logo. You'll also find the fingerprint scanner and 21MP camera on the back, the latter of which protrudes quite dramatically from the body of the device.

Around the edges there's a metal frame with neatly beveled edges, as well as the power button on the left-hand side, and volume rocker and "convenience button" on the right.

On the topic of the power button, we think it's in an odd place – the top corner of the left edge – and we repeatedly found ourselves stabbing the convenience key instead, a possible throwback to the days when we owned a Sony Xperia.

Muscle memory aside, there's no doubting that the button's positioning is weird – but not disastrous, as you can use the fingerprint scanner to wake the phone from sleep. On the top of the DTEK60 there's the 3.5mm headphone socket and on the bottom end the USB Type-C port.

Despite substituting tempered glass for plastic on its rear, the DTEK60 is still quite a slippery beast. During the review period, our handset actually slid right off the desk and onto the hard floor, so we'd recommend getting a case early on.

On the positive side, the phone survived this heart-stopping fall with just a few nicks on the corners, so it's clearly solidly built – which is impressive for such a svelte device.

It may be made by an external company, but there's still plenty of BlackBerry's DNA in the design of the DTEK60. The curves remind us of the iconic Bold series, while the convenience key will be instantly familiar to long-time supporters of the brand.

You can assign it different roles – we use it to instantly launch Google Now, for example – and after a few days in the company of the DTEK60 we found ourselves wishing that more phones boasted such a button. Being able to instantly launch an oft-used app from any screen is a lot more useful than it might sound on paper.

For a company which for many years forced its users to stare at awkward landscape-oriented displays, BlackBerry has certainly embraced the big-screen mobile revolution. The 5.5-inch panel on the DTEK60 has a pin-sharp resolution of 1440 x 2560, which gives it a pixel density of 534ppi.

Thanks to the fact that it's an AMOLED screen, colors look bright and punchy, while overall contrast is striking. While Samsung fans are used to such visual opulence and we dare say the panel on the S7 is superior, this is arguably the best display to ever grace a BlackBerry device.

Interface and reliability

• Serious security smarts
• Useful pop-up widgets
• Stays close to stock Android

While many Android handset makers are hell-bent on making their own mark on the Android operating system, BlackBerry has shown remarkable restraint with the DTEK60. To the casual observer the user interface looks practically the same as what you'd expect to see on stock Android devices like the Nexus 5X and Google Pixel.

This is most definitely a positive thing; the more modifications a manufacturer makes to the interface, the greater chance there is of bugs and compatibility issues being unwittingly introduced, and the additional time needed to customize the interface means software updates lag behind those seen on Google-branded devices.

Such is BlackBerry's willingness to dance to Google's tune that the DTEK60 doesn't come with custom music and media apps.

Instead, the phone ships with Google Photos and Google Play Music as standard. If you're an existing Android user then you'll likely prefer these apps anyway, and use them over the largely pointless variants which ship on phones from the likes of Samsung, LG and Sony.

Like so many of Google's apps, cloud storage makes these almost indispensable, and when you switch to a new phone you don't have to worry about losing your photos, videos, music or files. By sticking with Google's offerings, BlackBerry has skillfully avoided the needless duplication of features that so often plague Android devices.

While BlackBerry is happy to keep the core interface close to Google's own vision, the company has introduced new ideas of its own which really set the DTEK60 apart from its Android rivals – some of which work better than others.

The most notable has to be the BlackBerry Hub, a unified inbox for all your emails, text messages, tweets, calls, calendar appointments and instant messages.

Designed to look like the Gmail app, this all-in-one option does an excellent job of pulling together all your vital messages in one place, but if you're used to Android's already robust notification system then its value might be slightly diminished.

We personally find it a little overwhelming to see all of these notifications in a single app, but your own experience may vary, especially if you dislike having to hop between applications to respond to alerts.

Interestingly, this isn't totally unique to the DTEK60 or even BlackBerry phones, as it can be downloaded to other Android devices via Google Play.

BlackBerry has pre-loaded some of its own security-conscious apps, which are clearly aimed at business and enterprise users. WatchDox is a secure file-sharing tool with in-depth permission management, while underlying functionality is secured by high-level encryption across instant messaging, email and apps.

The DTEK security app is the perhaps the most visible element of BlackBerry's quest to eradicate any vulnerabilities, and runs in the background at all times, monitoring elements such as app permissions, data encryption, operating system integrity and even the suitability of your screen lock.

Should any area not pass muster, DTEK will warn you of this and encourage you to take action.

Finally, there's BlackBerry Password Keeper, which secures all your precious log-in details using AES-256 encryption and a single master password. In a neat touch you can also write secret notes within the Password Keeper to keep them away from prying eyes.

BlackBerry boasts that the DTEK60 is the most secure Android phone ever made, which is kind of like bragging that you've got the world's best chocolate teapot – Google's operating system doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to overall security, largely thanks to the fact that most Android phones can be rooted for customization and thereby exposed to all kinds of attacks.

Even so, BlackBerry is deadly serious about locking down its phones, and at the time of writing none of its Android devices have been rooted. The DTEK60 is designed to only function if the bootloader remains completely secure, and regular security updates are issued each month.

There's also what BlackBerry calls the "Hardware Root of Trust", with security keys being added to the processor which track, verify, and provision each device. All of this might seem like overkill, but it's important to remember that BlackBerry's focus is on business users who share confidential corporate data.

Elsewhere, BlackBerry has added pop-up widgets to the core Android interface. These work like 3D Touch pop-ups on iOS, but instead of a push you swipe up or down on the app icon.

This opens up a window which shows the available widgets for that application; pick one and the next time you swipe, you'll see the information presented by that widget. It's a great middle ground for those who like to see data at a glance but don't want massive widgets taking up their home screen.

There are also gesture controls, which allow you to open a particular app simply by swiping in a certain direction from the home button, and BlackBerry's own "Intelligent Keyboard", which learns how you type and comes with speedy "swipe to type" input.

After using the keyboard for a while we found ourselves reverting to Google's standard keyboard – available from the Google Play Store for free – but BlackBerry's effort is certainly one of the best custom efforts we've seen in a long time, which is unsurprising when you consider that physical keyboards were its key USP not so long ago.

Finally, we have the Productivity Tab, which sits on the side of the screen and can be opened with a swipe from the edge of the display. From here, you get an overview of your upcoming events, text messages, open tasks and your available contacts.

While it initially seems like a useful feature to have, the longer we spent with the DTEK60 the less we actually used it.

Annoyingly, we only remembered its existence on the numerous times that we accidentally opened the tab when performing other actions. Thankfully, like almost all the additional features BlackBerry has added into this handset, the Productivity Tab can be disabled entirely if you wish.

Movies, music and gaming

• Large, sharp screen is great for films and games
• …but the high resolution can leave games running less smoothly
• Powerful and clear 360-degree stereo sound

The DTEK60's large and striking AMOLED screen is predictably a great platform for watching movies and playing games.

However, its high resolution does mean that certain intense 3D games run less smoothly than on phones like the Xiaomi Mi5, which boasts the same Snapdragon 820 chipset but has a more manageable 1080p screen that places less strain on the internal hardware.

It's by no means a deal-breaker though, and gaming on BlackBerry's blower is still an enjoyable experience.

Audio is a much more agreeable affair, thanks to the DTEK60's unique stereo speaker setup. There's a speaker at the top and bottom of the device, but the grilles which allow the audio to pass out are present on both the front and back of the phone, offering 360-degree sound.

The speakers are powerful and clear, making this a great option for listening to tunes sans headphones.

Thanks to the bundled Waves MaxxAudio app, you can fine-tune the sound by tinkering with variables such as bass and treble, and these alterations carry across the entire interface, not just music playback. The results are best appreciated when using a set of headphones.

Specs and benchmark performance

• High-end specs with performance to match
• Solid benchmark score

The DTEK60 is among the first of BlackBerry's Android-based devices to really boast flagship hardware specifications, and its high-end specs show in the overall performance of the phone.

With Qualcomm's excellent Snapdragon 820 chipset doing the heavy lifting and 4GB of DDR4 RAM keeping things running, the user experience is rarely less than buttery-smooth.

Keeping the operating system close to stock Android will have no doubt helped in this regard, and we never encountered any pauses or stuttering, even when the handset was performing several different processor-intensive tasks at once.

For some unknown reason the Geekbench 4 benchmark refused to work on the DTEK60, but we did get AnTuTu running and it returned an excellent score of 147126, which is in line with other Snapdragon 820-powered devices – in other words, the DTEK60 delivers flagship performance.

Battery life

• 3000mAh battery gives day-long stamina
• It can be fully charged in just over an hour

BlackBerry promises 24 hours of "mixed use" out of the DTEK60's 3000mAh battery, which is a rather vague statement given that everyone's demands are different.

However, in an average day where we replied to emails, surfed the web, played a few games and streamed some music via Spotify, we found that the phone's stamina was more than adequate. In fact, there wasn't a single day where we were in danger of running out of juice before bedtime.

If you're a heavy user then you may find that's not the case, but mercifully the DTEK60 supports Qualcomm's Quick Charge standard, which allows you to grab a few more hours of battery life on just a 15-minute charge. To fully top-up the battery it takes just over an hour.

During our usual video test – where a HD video clip is played for 90 minutes with the volume at maximum and screen brightness set to full – the DTEK60 shed 20% of its battery.

That’s not the best result we’ve seen, with the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge for example losing just 14%, but it beats the 22% drop exhibited by the HTC 10 and the 32% loss shown by the Pixel XL.

Camera

• 21MP camera is best used in manual mode
• 8MP front-facing camera has LED flash for selfies

The DTEK60's 21MP rear-facing camera comes with its own custom app, produced by BlackBerry, which boasts a suite of options including HDR, slow-motion, panorama and manual controls.

It also comes with a "Focus before capture" mode which aims to eradicate blurry, ill-defined images, but comes with a slightly longer delay when taking a snap.

Camera performance is pretty decent, with the DTEK60 being swift to take an image and performing well in illuminated conditions. In low-light it's not quite as adept as phones like the iPhone 7 or Samsung Galaxy S7, and overall image quality doesn't quite match those handsets, either.

Colors often appear washed out and when there's a strong contrast between light and darkness – a building shot against a bright sky, for example – the phone has a worrying habit of oversaturating the lighter area and putting the rest of the picture in darkness.

In almost all cases, using the manual controls is your best bet at getting the ideal shot. Another disappointment is how far the camera sensor sticks out on the back of the device, meaning the phone can't be laid flat on a table without wobbling.

On the front of the BlackBerry DTEK60 you'll find an 8MP snapper complete with an LED "selfie flash", which we imagine is really useful when taking sultry and seductive self-portraits in dark rooms.

The rear-facing camera can record 4K video at 30fps, or 1080p at a smoother 60fps. The selfie cam is capable of capturing 1080p video at 30fps, and both have a video stabilization feature, which aims to reduce the effect of shaking hands.

Camera samples

Verdict

Given that BlackBerry was considered to be on the ropes not so long ago, the DTEK60 is a surprisingly assured release.

It successfully combines an elegant design with powerful hardware, a fantastic screen, largely stock Android and a surfeit of genuinely useful apps, not to mention powerful security features aimed at keeping your data as protected as possible.

32GB of storage should be more than enough for most users, and the ability to boost this with a microSD card is welcome – and not something that all Android flagships offer. The battery is large and can be charged quickly, and the stereo speakers are powerful and offer 360-degree audio.

Perhaps the biggest let-down is the camera, which, while being an improvement over traditional BlackBerry snappers, isn't as accomplished as those seen on other phones in this price bracket.

We also struggled with the placement of the power button, which seems to have been positioned exactly where our fingers would never naturally sit during use.

Who’s this for?

Given the BlackBerry branding, it should come as no surprise that the DTEK60 has a strong business and security focus. If you value your privacy and security, then there's really no better Android option in this price range.

Of course, if you pick Android because you like customizing the interface, gaining root access and flashing new ROM images, then you'll almost certainly want to avoid the DTEK60; this is as locked-down as Google's operating system gets, so tinkering is almost entirely out of the picture.

Should you buy it?

If you're kept up at night by the fear of people hacking into your phone and gaining access to your personal data, then the DTEK60 is the answer to your prayers.

Regular software updates, super-secure features and high-level encryption keep BlackBerry's handset rock-solid, but remarkably the company has achieved this without layering an obtrusive interface on top of Google's core Android software.

With a SIM-free price of $499/£475 (around AU$650), the DTEK60 undercuts many Android phones with very similar hardware specifications, making it a solid choice if you're feeling flush but still appreciate a bargain.

The BlackBerry DTEK60 is a strong Android flagship - arguably the company's best, but there are a number of other great high-end phones. These are three of the best alternatives you might want to consider.

Samsung Galaxy S7

2016's Android handset to beat, the Galaxy S7 uses the same Snapdragon 820 chipset as the DTEK60 (at least in the US) and also uses an AMOLED screen – albeit one which is slightly smaller.

It has a waterproof casing, which BlackBerry's phone lacks, along with a far better camera and a more premium build, but also costs a little bit more SIM-free, though you can often find it reduced now, bringing the S7 more in line with the DTEK60’s pricing.

• Read our full Samsung Galaxy S7 review

iPhone 7

If you're not tied to Android then Apple's latest and greatest is perhaps worth a look. It's water resistant for the first time ever and boasts a great camera, powerful internals and a super-fast fingerprint scanner.

Thanks to Apple's locked-down OS, it's also more secure than most Android phones, DTEK60 aside. If you're shopping on a budget then cost will be an issue, as the iPhone 7 is a lot more expensive than BlackBerry's device.

• Read our full iPhone 7 review

Google Pixel

Rocking the latest Snapdragon 821 chipset and Android 7.0, the Google Pixel is the replacement for the long-running Nexus line of handsets. Constructed with Google's input and boasting build quality to rival the iPhone 7, it's one of the best Android phones money can buy.

That brings with it a high price though, with the Pixel costing more than the DTEK60 (and if you want the 5.5-inch Pixel XL the price goes up even higher).

• Read our full Google Pixel review

First reviewed: November 2016