Siemens SK65 w/BlackBerry Review

By Ian Bell February 8, 2005

Quote from the review:

“Make no bones about it: the SK65 is a large phone. It weighs nearly as much as a Sony Ericsson P910, coming in at 147g. It is long and thick, too: 123mm x 47mm x 22mm. But it still fits the normal candybar form factor, and as such, is very pocketable. The gloss black and matte silver finish is very attractive, but the black surfaces are very prone to smudging. The front of the handset is home of the large, bright 132×176 pixel 64K color display, the metal screen inlay speaker grille, and the keypad and controls. The keypad, though low on the SK65’s body, is quite usable, has no odd quirks to it, and is lit with a soft white backlight. The directional controller, or d-pad, also works very well….”

Read the full review

Editors' Recommendations

Publisher

I work with the best people in the world and get paid to play with gadgets. What's not to like?

Mobile

Classic BlackBerries are finally losing suppport as company shuts down services

BlackBerry Key2. Credits: BlackBerry official.

After kickstarting the smartphone era, BlackBerry's classic devices and services are finally shutting down. No, not the Android-powered modern BlackBerries such as the KeyOne, Key2, and Key2 LE, but anything that ran a BlackBerry-branded operating system. Whether this is a classic QWERTY keyboard powered by BlackBerry 7, or the iPhone-inspired BlackBerry 10, or even the forgotten BlackBerry PlayBook OS -- it's all shutting down this month.
"As another milestone in the BlackBerry journey, we will be taking steps to decommission the legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1, and earlier versions, with an end of life or termination date of January 4, 2022," the company announced. "As of this date, devices running these legacy services and software through either carrier or Wi-Fi connections will no longer reliably function, including for data, phone calls, SMS, and 911 functionality. We have chosen to extend our service until then as an expression of thanks to our loyal partners and customers."
BlackBerry bids farewell to its longtime customers. Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
It's the end of an era for what was once a distinguished product that defined the market a decade ago. Even predating iMessage, the BlackBerry instant messaging service -- BBM -- was a great selling point for the product line. As iOS, Android, and WhatsApp began to dominate, BlackBerry devices began to fall by the wayside.
The company tried to rejuvenate its smartphone business by launching its own touchscreen phones and later its own operating system in 2013, but had little success. Unable to keep up,ity stopped the creation of smartphones in 2016 and licensed services to TCL Ltd. between 2016 to 2020. BlackBerry promised to launch a smartphone by the end of 2021 in partnership with OnwardMobility, but that hasn't panned out.
The company has now shifted its focus to selling software. It briefly had a nostalgia-fueled increase in its share price this year, which later nearly returned to its original price. While the market has been saturated with multiple companies claiming a stake in the smartphone pie, hopefully, BlackBerry manages to return to some form of relevance with its current partnership.

Deals

Hurry! iPad Mini is $65 OFF at Amazon for Black Friday

apple ipad mini deal prime day 2020 featured resized

Amazon's Black Friday deals have brought a ton of great discounts but one of the best deals overall has to be the heavily-discounted iPad Mini. You can currently get the iPad Mini for just $335 --down $65 from its original price of $399. If you've been looking for an affordable, portable tablet -- this is it. Go buy the iPad Mini now!

Tablets like the iPad Mini are always in high demand, especially as work-from-home is still encouraged by most businesses. Black Friday is the best time to buy the iPad Mini as this is the last major sales event of the year. You won't find a better price than this anything soon. You need to act quickly though, at such a low price the iPad Mini is going to sell out very quickly.

Mobile

BlackBerry rises from the grave: New 5G phone with a keyboard coming in 2021

BlackBerry Key2. Credits: BlackBerry official.

BlackBerry is the smartphone brand that steadfastly refuses to die. The presumed-dead name has been resurrected once again, this time by a new company called OnwardMobility. It will work with manufacturer FIH Mobile to create and sell a 5G BlackBerry Android phone with a physical keyboard, ready for a potential release in the U.S. and Europe during the first half of 2021.

You read that right: A new BlackBerry phone with a physical keyboard and 5G, running Google’s Android software, is coming next year. TCL Communications was the last company to produce BlackBerry smartphones. It did so under license from BlackBerry Ltd., which continues to provide mobile security services, but isn’t in the hardware business anymore. TCL let its license lapse in February 2020 when modern, Android-based BlackBerry phones became a thing of the past. Until now.