BlackBerry releases KEY2 teaser with dual cameras ahead of NYC launch

The BlackBerry KEYOne’s successor is not far from officially dropping and the company has released a teaser that shows off a couple of closeups of the BlackBerry KEY2.

The teaser starts with the BlackBerry Logo and a new soft-grip pattern on the back of the phone. It appears that this grippy pattern will be adorned all over the back of the phone as we see the same pattern around a dual camera setup with a dual-LED flash next to them.

Next, we can see the full arrangement of physical buttons on the right side of the phone. We are expecting the KEY2 to have a similar arrangement to the KEYOne: starting from the top, a volume rocker, the textured power key, and a convenience key under that one.

From there, we see a closeup of the physical keyboard, which ends featuring a new key whose function we’re not sure of. It’s a button whose symbol is a 3 x 3 grid of dots, which leads us to speculate a couple of functions. Perhaps a single press of the key can show you the device’s App drawer while a long-press might work for another BlackBerry-specific function like a shortcut to the BlackBerry Hub.

This device’s teaser is very much in line with the TENAA filing we saw a few weeks ago of the BlackBerry codename: Athena. Still, we can’t see capacitive navigation buttons on the teaser nor did we see them in the TENAA filing, which means we might expect to see one-screen navigation keys in exchange for a 16:9 display.

Anyway, we’ll be at the New York City event covering BlackBerry’s launch of “An Icon Reborn”. The event is set to take place on June 7, in just two weeks’ time.

What are your expectations from BlackBerry and the KEY2? We’d love to see a 16:9 screen instead of the KEYOne’s 4:3 display and better performance.