BlackBerry KEYone Breaks Spectacularly In Bend Test

It's been a while since we've seen something break at the hands of JerryRigEverything's Zack Nelson. OEMs have become a bit smarter and have recently avoided being inducted into the YouTube channel's shelf of shame. Even the fragile-looking Samsung Galaxy S8 turned out to be quite the unyielding beast. It seems, however, that TCL didn't get the memo. That's because while the premium BlackBerry KEYone won't scratch so easily and feels solid in your hand, it will easily stop working even with very little force applied.

It has been almost 3 years since the whole "bendgate" started with the iPhone 6 Plus, courtesy of Unbox Therapy. Since then, bend tests have become just as popular as drop tests, though the chances of a phone bending and breaking are perhaps statistically lower than accidentally dropping it. Unless you have a BlackBerry KEYone, in which case both might mean the same thing.

First, the good news. The KEYone is pretty resistant to scratches, especially (and ironically) against keys. The physical QWERTY keyboard does scratch easily with a cutter, but the chances you having an unsheathed blade in your pocket or bag are relatively low. The phone's screen also does well under immense heat, just like any decent LCD panel.

Now for the bad part. It apparently doesn't take much to make the KEYone stop working because the screen can be easily popped off and its cable torn of with very little force. Sure, Nelson might be an extra strong man, but users have confirmed his fears that it takes a nothing more than a drop to kick the screen out.

TCL is isn't new in business, so it's perplexing that it uses practically no adhesive to keep the screen in place. Even more perplexing that this structural flaw passed any sort of QA. And while the BlackBerry KEYone doesn't crumple that much in the hands of the mighty Nelson, it still ends up totally unusable anyway and, therefore, ends up in his shelf of shame anyway.