The affordable new BlackBerry phone is safe in every sense of the word

Business Insider/Jeff Dunn

BlackBerry doesn’t have much left. Its operating system is dead. Its apps are unbundled. Physical keyboards are a relic. People don’t talk about it anymore.

This, I imagine, is how you end up naming a phone the DTEK50 — you see the writing on the wall. And indeed, the Waterloo, Ontario company’s latest handset feels like it’s coming from a company that’s been stripped for parts.

This isn’t a moonshot like the Priv; it’s an inoffensive and altogether safe stab at a certain sect of privacy-conscious users, most of whom would already consider BlackBerry in the first place.

At $300, though, it’s also affordable. That opens it up to a much larger potential audience than the $700 Priv ever could. Let's see if it does enough to tap into that group.

The DTEK50 is a nice, utilitarian piece of hardware. It’s pleasingly thin (0.29 inches) and light (4.76 ounces), and it doesn’t feel loose. Its textured back is grippy, and its aluminum sides are cool and sturdy. Those materials, along with the gray-and-black look, come off a bit boring, but the whole thing is easy to hold.

On the right side of the DTEK50 is a “convenience key,” which you can program to quick launch various apps. This isn’t a new idea, but being able to jump into your settings or email with the press of a button is, well, convenient.

You might initially mistake that key for a power button — that’s on the top left side here — but I got used to it without too much trouble.

What isn’t here is a physical keyboard. Though BlackBerry says it’s not done with the old-school keys altogether, the DTEK50 suggests that it realizes most people don’t need one. Personally, I didn’t miss it — then again, I never relied on them in the first place.