The BlackBerry Motion is the newest battery King

Blackberry has been trying to get back in the smartphone game for a couple of years.

Their last attempt before the BlackBerry Motion was the KEYone. The KEYone was an interesting phone but it wasn’t for everyone because it had a physical keyboard and it was quite expensive.

The Motion shares the same internals with the KEYone but it ditches the keyboard for a 5.5″ screen and a larger battery.

Build Quality

The phone’s frame is made out of light aluminum and the back out of some type of rubberized plastic. The top side or the back above the rubberized plastic is also made out of plastic and that’s probably covering the antennas.

A 12MP F2.0 camera sensor is also sitting on the back next to a dual tone flash. I believe that this is the same camera sensor that was used on the KEYone and the original Google Pixel.

On the front of the device there is a 8MP front facing camera and a LED notification light that can change colours.

The 5.5″ screen is an IPS panel that has a 1080P resolution. The colours are very vivid and the viewing angles and sensitivity great but the screen doesn’t get super bright. It is somewhat difficult to see it in direct sunlight and i found the screen on the BlackBerry KEYone a bit better.

Just underneath the screen there is the fingerprint scanner and the back and multitasking buttons. The buttons cannot be moved around from the software and it may take you a bit of time to get used to this confirmation.

The fingerprint scanner is accurate and very quick to unlock the screen. It can also be used to pull down the notification tab and take secure pictures, but I’ll get into more detail about that a bit later.

On the right side of the metallic frame there is a button called a convenience key, the power button and the volume rockers.

The convenience key is placed in a somehow inconvenient place and it’s quite easy to press it by mistake. This button can be configured to open apps or different profiles depending on your needs.

On the other side of the frame there is the sim card tray slot and this phone can take a sim card and an SD card. That SD card can also be formated as internal storage therefore you won’t be running out of internal storage anytime soon.

Lastly at the bottom of the phone there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, the hole for the microphone, a USB C post and the microphone. The speaker doesn’t sound too bad but it’s only one tiny little speaker and you can’t ask too much from it.

The phone also supports OTG and dast charging. Charging the phone from 0-100% is done in just under 2 hours.

IP67 Certified

Like most flagships these days the BlackBerry Motion is water and duat resistant as well and in this price range this is a great feature.

You can find the BlackBerry Motion on Amazon: http://geni.us/OoghMb

Battery Life

The BlackBerry Motion has a 4000mAh battery and a the super power efficient Snapdragon 625 CPU.

You will easily be able to get 2 to 3 days on one charge with medium usage. If you are a very heavy user you will still be able to get almost two days and over 13h of screen on time.

The battery life on the BlackBerry Motion is one of the best that i have encountered.

Specs and Performance

The BlackBerry Motion is powered by the Snapdragon 625 CPU that is paired with 4GB or Ram and 32GB of internal storage. The operating system takes about 10GB of storage and the phone is left with around 22GB free.

Even though the phone only gets a Benchmark score of about 60000 on the Antutu Benchmark it perform extremely well with all apps. The main difference you will fell when comparing this with another phone using the Snapdragon 835 will be the time that it takes to open apps.

Once an app is loaded it works great and i tried most social media apps and a somewhat heavy game; GTA San Andreas.

Overall the phone’s performance is adequate for anyone’s usage and it will not dissapoint.

Cameras and Picture Quality

The 8MP front facing camera does great with plenty of light. The pictures are sharp and detailed and with accurate colours. In low light they become quite grainy but overall acceptable. I have included some sample pictures in the review video that you can find at the end of this article.The rear camera is a 12MP sensor with a F2.0 aperture. Just like the BlackBerry KEYone it takes great looking pictures with plenty of light or in low light. The colours are a bit more saturated than in reality but they look quite good. The HDR does a good job as well. Once again, i have included lots of sample pictures in the video review below.

Software

The BlackBerry Motion is running Android 7.1.2 with a very light skin on top of it. It comes pre-installed with all the Google apps and a couple of Blackberry specific apps like the BlackBerry HUB and the DTEK Security app. Since the CPU is powerful enough and the software is very well optimized scrolling in between screens opening apps and closing apps is done very fluidly. Multitasking works great as well and the phone doesn’t kill the apps running in the background.If you haven’t used the BlackBerry HUB before you may find it interesting and useful as it brings all your notifications in the same place. Personally i am not a big fan of it because i get hundreds of notifications daily and it just feels very crowded.A very interesting feature that i haven’t seen before has to do with the fingerprint scanner. If you have the camera app open and you touch the fingerprint scanner the phone will take a picture and lock it in the secure folder. The secure folder can only be accessed if you unlock it will your fingerprint. This is a very unique feature that i haven’t seen before and i hope that other manufacturers will follow.

Conclusion

The BlackBerry Motion offers a lot of value for under $500 and should definitely be on your list if you are looking for a mid-range device.

The battery life is exceptional, the software well optimized and the front and rear cameras quite good as well.

You can find the BlackBerry Motion on Amazon: http://geni.us/OoghMb

for more information you can also check out my review video below.

*Affiliate Disclosure
Some of the links used in the description will direct you to Amazon, as an Amazon Associate I earn commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.