No sooner had he taken control of BlackBerry than John Chen was already announcing several major changes. The return of the physical keyboard to the heart of the group's product strategy was part of this. From then on, we no longer really imagined seeing the arrival of a BlackBerry smartphone without a keyboard in our regions.

And yet. At the last Mobile World Congress, the Leap was announced, which could be seen as a simple evolution of the all-touch Z3 from 2014, except for one detail. And not least. It is not intended for emerging markets. He has just arrived at our house.

And, by home, we obviously mean our editorial staff, but not only. The BlackBerry Leap is available in France. You will find it in particular at the price of 289 € in the official store, which makes it the most affordable of the new generation BlackBerrys. It remains to discover what it is really worth but, before that, let's quickly go back to its main technical characteristics:

The Leap clearly lacks class

From the outside, the BlackBerry Leap takes up the codes of the BlackBerry Z3: black and rectangular frame, glass front and non-removable cover in soft plastic with dotted pattern on the back and smooth for the part that goes up on the edges. The components are also laid out in the same way on the surface, with a few minor details. The screen takes up most of the front while leaving relatively wide bezels on the sides. Above are a speaker for calls, a webcam, light/proximity sensors and a notification LED. Below, the BlackBerry logo.

Connectors and buttons have obviously been assembled on the edges. The bottom one accommodates the microUSB port. The one on the right, the volume and BlackBerry Assistant controls. The one on the left, the hatch that leads to the microSIM and microSD slots. The top one, the Jack socket, a microphone and, unfortunately, the power on/standby button. Unfortunately, because with its 144 mm length, it will be necessary to go far to look for it, which is never practical.

The back is occupied by the camera and its flash, which stand apart behind a narrow window but almost as wide as the chassis at the top, the BlackBerry logo in the center and the loudspeaker which almost merges with the dotted pattern at the bottom left. The set is well assembled and not unpleasant in hand but sorely lacking in refinement. Frankly, the BlackBerry Leap is big, thick, heavy... and coarse considering its selling price which is close to 300 €.

A large and beautiful 16:9 screen

Fortunately, the screen quickly raises the bar. Far from being excellent, it at least has the merit of being in line with the positioning of the smartphone. With its 5-inch diagonal and 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, it is comfortable enough to browse and enjoy all types of content, from photos to web pages and video games. The colors are more pleasing to the eye, neither too bland nor too bright. The brightness is not too aggressive while maintaining sufficient readability in direct sunlight. As for the viewing angles, they are rather open. In short, this is what is expected of a mid-range smartphone.

Touchscreen, Blackberry 10 was made for that!

Like the Classic, the Leap comes with BlackBerry 10.3.1. Nothing really new here therefore except that we find an exclusively tactile navigation with a few simple gestures to remember. Swiping the screen from the bottom edge to the center returns to the home screen and displays a notification counter. Add a small swipe to the right and the Hub appears. Swiping the screen from the top edge to the center brings up quick settings from the home screen or apps settings. Once these basics have been acquired, all you have to do is let yourself be guided by the information on the screen.

The home screen is organized around a panel of open applications. On its right, the list of installed applications. On its left, the Hub for messaging (SMS, emails, alerts, calls... all configurable by account and order of priority). A row of shortcuts for phone, search (with BlackBerry Assistant), and camera are visible at the bottom. It changes to an "action bar" in applications. Include a menu with quick access to the options you use most often. The virtual keyboard, still just as effective with its scalable prediction system and configurable text shortcuts, obviously appears as needed.

As for applications, nothing new either. We have already mentioned BlackBerry Assistant, capable of controlling system applications on voice or written request in addition to launching searches. We also find BlackBerry Blend, a wireless synchronization tool for PCs and tablets, as well as the famous BBM. There is also something to find your way around (Maps), read audio and video files, work (office automation) or surf the Internet. BlackBerry is also adding Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Youtube and Dropbox.

For the rest, there's BlackBerry World and the Amazon App Store, hopefully there's what you're looking for on the shelves since they're not the best-stocked stores. Note also that there is about 10 GB left to download new applications, BlackBerry 10 occupying only 2.5 GB.

Outdated chipset, neglected OS… Gamers, go your way!

Light on memory, the latest BlackBerry OS is also light on the chipset since the aging Snapdragon S4 Plus, made up of two KRAIT 300 cores clocked at 1.5 GHz, manages to run it without too much trouble. Navigation is generally smooth. The 2 GB of RAM that come with it are probably also for something. We were also able to get quite good results in video playback.

HD 1080p is decoded without problems as long as the codec is recognized. This is obviously where things go wrong since the native player's codec library is far from complete but, if you stick to common formats, you should be fine. Anyway, you won't have much choice in the absence of quality readers on the shelves of BB World and the Amazon store. We did find VLC in the latter but it stopped working every time we started playing. Don't worry, BlackBerry's is far from mediocre. It even reads subtitles.

On the other hand, we were a little more disappointed in the game, without really knowing whose fault it was. Explanations. Angry Birds Go! ran like a charm despite crude graphics. We then tested Sonic Dash and encountered several annoying slowdowns. First hypothesis, the second title requires more resources and the Adreno 225 is not able to respond to it. Second hypothesis, Sonic Dash, downloaded from the Amazon store rather than that of BlackBerry as for the Rovio software, suffers from slight compatibility problems with BB 10.

In both cases, the result is the same. The Leap, despite its screen cut for multimedia and its powerful speaker, can offer a decent experience in multimedia but little more.

Photography is not his forte!

And don't expect photo miracles either. With its 8 megapixel sensor supported by an LED flash, the latest BlackBerry is far from the best photophones on the market. Just take a look at the dedicated application to realize this. As always, it is austere to say the least and offers few settings: four shooting modes, five scenes, resolution, flash and HDR. No manual mode.

And the bad impression is confirmed at the exit with shots often poorly exposed and with irregular rendering. The details are numerous in the foreground and fade in the second, behind excessive smoothing. The corners even appear in blur. Needless to say, this does not improve as the light decreases... The color reproduction raises the level a bit, but that is obviously not enough to make the Leap a good camera. It will be enough for Instagram but little more.

The BlackBerry without too many keyboards?

Two years after the mixed launch of BlackBerry 10, the Canadian returns to all-touch and serves us practically the same recipe. The BlackBerry Leap is nothing more than a Z10 with a bigger screen or a Z30 with a slower chipset. Unfortunately, during these two years that have passed, the chipset has aged a little badly and the BlackBerry World catalog has not been enriched while the Amazon store is far from being an ideal solution. In short, the recipe is no better today than it was in 2013 if you are looking for a smartphone capable of entertaining you.

The Leap should however appeal to professionals with its advanced tools in terms of security and synchronization or with its comfortable autonomy. It is still necessary that they have not already fallen for one of the models mentioned earlier, which are still on sale and undoubtedly represent better value for money.