Last year, when Zack Nelson put his hands on the BlackBerry KEYone, he found out that its screen needed more glue — it fell out of the offset position in the chassis and hung to the device by the cable connecting to the logic board. But otherwise, it did fairly okay through the stresses of scratches, burns and bends and manufacturer TCL responded in quick order.

Now as the page turns over to the KEY2, Nelson — who runs the popular JerryRigEverything channel on YouTube — has taken the second-generation keyboard phone to his battery of tests. You can check out the video below or scroll down more for bullet point conclusions.

• The cover glass is more reserved this year — flat glass with no pooling over the edges — decreasing chances of cracking. It’s on top of the display and selfie camera.
• Gorilla Glass 3 is more brittle than its successors, but it scratches around the same point as most other glass with material hardness at a level 6 on the Mohs scale.
• Matte plastic keys are scratchable, but are difficult to pry off as they are rooted in thick rubber feet over the circuit board. That said, the indicative key covers are printed on and may wear off over time — hopefully, touch typists will be acclimated by that point.
• The fingerprint sensor in the space bar is very difficult to scratch and functions well.
• The actual chassis is made of 7000-series aluminium and is exposed on the top, bottom and sides.
• The diamond-shaped touch material at back appears to be rubber, meant for grip.
• The LCD screen stands against a pocket lighter’s flame for more than 10 seconds. Pixels recover.
• The KEY2 survives Nelson’s bend test with the display, keys and back panels staying in place and intact.