Review: BlackBerry DTEK60 Gives You Secure Android, At a Price

This is a BlackBerry one can recommend to the average consumer and business user alike.

You remember the unsinkable BlackBerry juggernaut from barely a decade ago? The one that collided into an iPhone-sized iceberg many years back and today is a shadow of its former self, releasing products branded under their name but built and designed by third-party manufacturers.

BlackBerry today is a software company, securing Android on a new lineup of devices, of which the unimaginatively named DTEK60 is the poster boy. Does the new formula - an outsourced-hardware model coupled with BlackBerry’s vision of a secure Android layered on top of their past laurels and fan base – work for the DTEK60?

Pros

• Strong focus on security and productivity
• Clean Android with some smart modifications
• Good performance, outside of gaming
• Premium design

Cons

• Average camera, struggles in low light
• Not even splash-proof
• Somewhat odd button placement

What’s Good?

Irrespective of who makes the device - it’s Chinese major TCL, if you’re curious – the DTEK60 looks every bit the premium device its pricing suggests it is.

Chamfered metal frame, sandwiched between two layers of glass that are slightly curved along the front edges, a raised ‘floating glass’ effect - the DTEK60 has a fit, finish and build quality that matches stuff we’ve seen from Sony or Samsung. It is a fingerprint magnet, that’s for sure.

One design element we liked was the handy Convenience key on the right side, which you could use to launch a frequently used app or perform a settings change, and after a few days with it, you start wishing more phones were shipped with a similar quick launch key.

The only downside to the button placement is that it’s usually where one finds the power/standby button on most ‘droids, and the power button on the top corner on the left edge is wholly counter-intuitive on this device. Fortunately, you can double-tap-to-wake instead.

Switch it on, and the DTEK60 is a capable performer, running Qualcomm’s almost-latest Snapdragon 820 CPU, and not the 821 we’ve seen in the OnePlus 3T. Coupled with 4 gigs of RAM and Adreno 530 graphics, you wouldn't notice the difference though – apps opened quickly and the phone went between menus and switching apps stutter-free.

Not one for running graphic-intensive games, but listening to audio on the stereo speaker setup – one that allows audio to pass from both the front and the back of the phone - is quite nice.

The 32GB built-in storage is expandable, and par for the course, and the 5.5-inch quad-HD AMOLED display is bright and the colors are pleasing – nice inky blacks without super-saturated colors.

Battery performance from the 3,000mAh battery is representative of the high-end flagship category in which it operates – nothing to worry about, but nothing to write home about either. Translated, it lasts a day of heavy use, and there’s fast charging for good measure.

With the DTEK60, BlackBerry has made some useful additions to a largely-stock Android with apps like DTEK and Password Keeper, and this is probably the biggest reason you would consider this device over the similarly-specced and priced competition.

Does it stand tall to the claim of being the “World’s Most Secure Android Smartphones”?

Certainly, BB has worked to rid base Android of a number of common Android woes via a hardened OS kernel, a secure boot loader and most crucially, a promise to fix any security flaws on the device as soon as possible, which means you won’t have to wait for weeks until the next major Android vulnerability is discovered.

Now, whether the company can come good on the claim is for time to tell, so it’s down to your (and possibly your organisation’s IT team’s) faith in BlackBerry’s reputation. Either way, the DTEK60 is far more secure than the average Android, so if security is important for you, BB delivers.

What’s Bad?

BlackBerry nails so much of the brief that it’s a pity they overlooked some key areas. There’s no IP rating, which means the DTEK60 isn’t even protected against basic splashes, and with the big guns packing full water immersion capabilities, the ‘Berry compares rather poorly in this regard.

The camera is quite good for a BlackBerry, but that’s not saying much, given how sub-par past BB cameras used to be.

Performance is decent in good light, but not so in poor light, with the camera’s auto-focus a bit of a hit-and-miss affair…and overall image quality doesn't match up to the iPhone or Samsung flagships.

Why Buy It?

For the first time in a really long while, this is a BlackBerry that one can recommend to the average consumer and business user alike. One can go so far as to say BlackBerry’s strategy of outsourcing its hardware is paying off, and the company has turned a corner with the DTEK60.

All said, it’s a pretty good phone with no deal-breaking flaws, not even its strictly average camera. The challenge is that at its price (Rs. 46,990), all the extra premium it’s commanding over say a OnePlus 3T is for its software and added security.

Whether that’s worth the money or not is up to you.

(Tushar Kanwar is a technology columnist and commentator and has been contributing for the past 15 years to India’s leading newspapers and magazines. He can be reached at @2shar.)