Blackberry KEYone successor "Athena" shows off design in new renders

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A new set of renders appears to show off the successor to last year’s BlackBerry KeyOne. It has previously been rumored that the Canadian brand would be launching a successor to the original device, internally known as “Athena.” But thanks to a newly-leaked set of renders, the design of the new smartphone has been shown off in full.

As expected, the device, which could be called either the BlackBerry KEYtwo or KEYone 2, retains the brand’s signature QWERTY keyboard, while also sporting a slightly more angular design. Following in the footsteps of the BlackBerry KEYone Black Edition, the successor adopts a much darker frame, doing away with the silver one that was featured on last year’s regular variant. In addition, the front glass panel has been extended to the very top of the phone, while the top bezel has also been reduced in size. Furthermore, the keyboard appears to have been designed with a different finish on top of the buttons, while the overall shape is slightly more rectangular. Speaking of rectangular, the rounded frame that featured on last year’s KEYone has been swapped out for a much more angular one that sports a brushed aluminum finish. Also, a fourth textured-button has been added to the side of the device, although it’s currently unclear what this will be used for.

Moving on to the rear of the smartphone, a refined plastic panel covers the majority of the device, while the single camera module featured on last year’s model has been replaced by a new dual-camera setup that is accompanied by a dual-tone flash. On a separate note, a 3.5mm headphone jack is included on top of the device, while a USB Type-C connector can be seen between the bottom firing speaker.

BlackBerry smartphone manufacturer TCL is yet to make an official statement in regards to the rumored device but, considering last year’s smartphone went on sale in April, an updated version should be due sometime in the near future.