Blackphone2: a secure smartphone for paranoid Android fans
With Android malware attacks becoming more and more frequent, and even Apple's iOS showing signs of vulnerability, the pressure is on to build a truly secure smart-phone.  Blackphone2 is an early version of what may well yet become a cult item; an unhackable, and untraceable smart-phone that works on any operator's mini-SIM.  Buyers get a one-year free subscription to an ﻿encrypted voice and text messaging service.

Specs at a glance: Silent Circle Blackphone 2 Screen 2560×1440 5.5” Full HD IPS OS Silent OS (based on Android Lollipop) CPU Qualcomm® Snapdragon 615, 1.7GHz Octa-core RAM 3GB GPU Adreno 405 Storage 32GB, with up to 128GB additional via microSD Networking Dual-band 2.4/5.0GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0LE. LTE and worldwide 3G/HSPA+ cellular data. Ports Micro USB 2.0, headphones Camera 13MP rear camera with BSI and flash, 5MP front camera, Size 7.9 x 76.4 x 152.4mm Weight 164.9 gm Battery 3060 mAh with Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 Starting price $799 Other perks Silent OS 2.0, 1 year SilentPhone encrypted communications,

For the majority of smartphone manufacturers, security and privacy are check boxes on a feature list. For Blackphone, they're the main attraction. Launched last year as a joint venture between the secure communications service Silent Circle and the Spanish specialty phone manufacturer Geeksphone, Blackphone's eponymous first product was an Android-based smartphone intended to provide the security and privacy that were lacking in Google's mobile operating system. Last June, we got an exclusive first look at that device and found it to be largely what it claimed to be. Unsurprisingly for a security-minding phone, the original Blackphone felt somewhat lacking in the usability department and somewhat janky in the hardware department.

A lot has changed in a year. Silent Circle—founded by Phil Zimmerman (creator of PGP), former Entrust Chief Technology Officer John Callas (the man behind much of the security in Mac OS X and iOS), and former Navy SEAL and security entrepreneur Mike Janke—bought out Geeksphone and absorbed the joint venture. The company hired a new CEO (former Entrust CEO and Nortel President Bill Conner), renamed and rebuilt its Android-based operating system, upgraded the infrastructure of its encrypted voice and text communications network, and built an entirely new hardware platform based on a somewhat more industry-standard chipset. All of that has led the team toward Blackphone 2. Today, Silent Circle begins shipping its new flagship (and only) handset; and Ars once again got early access to put it through the usability and security wringer.

The new Silent OS adds updated security functionality, better management for enterprise users, and integration with Google's app ecosystem. The Blackphone 2 delivers all that in a package that is much more polished and commercial than its predecessor. The phone is also the first part of a rollout of a more complete set of security services that includes upgraded versions of its central Silent Phone app for iOS and standard Android.

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Make no mistake: even if Blackphone 2 is a big step up from its predecessor, this still isn't for everyone. This phone is sleek, subtle, and usable, but its $799 price tag is not reflected in its hardware. Instead, you're paying for security and privacy features that will keep your communications and personal data out of the hands of corporate competitors, governments, and suspicious spouses. Blackphone 2 will allow you to literally have your work phone and personal phone separate within the same device. Phones purchased directly from Silent Circle come with a 1-year subscription to the company's encrypted voice and text messaging service, which currently costs app users on other devices about $25 a month.

So it might not have a stylus, the fastest processor, or the most powerful graphics engine, but it will serviceably perform as a smartphone while not giving you up to surveillance. The Blackphone 2 is the phone your chief information security officer will want your CEO to carry.

Blackphone 2: the unboxening











The first Blackphone did not offer much in the way of an unboxing experience aside from the tamper-resistant seal on the box. But Silent Circle has gone to great lengths to up the ante in that regard—both in terms of tamper-resistance and unboxing. Everybody gets an unboxing experience, even if the phone gets delivered to the IT department for configuration first.

The Blackphone 2 is only available "unlocked." You need to provide the Nano SIM for your chosen GSM-based cellular provider, which you can swap at will when you travel or fire your old carrier. The phone is LTE and worldwide 3G/HSPA+ compatible. The Nano SIM goes into a tray which can also hold a microSD card (up to 128 gigabytes).

On the surface, the phone looks like your standard 5.5-inch screened smartphone—the same size as the iPhone 6 Plus. The original Blackphone had an odd rounded back cover and "Blackphone" embossed into its plastic, and the Blackphone 2 is almost anonymous by comparison. The Silent Circle and Blackphone logos are subtly printed on its back and easily covered by a case for those who prefer not to drop a phone that screams, "I am carrying a secure phone!" into a security checkpoint x-ray machine basket. Some iPhone 6 Plus cases will fit the Blackphone, though they may not play nicely with the Android button arrangement.

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The original Blackphone's hardware was a Geekphone custom build based on an Nvidia chipset. The Blackphone 2's hardware is much more standard, and it's less of a letdown overall. There are 13- and 5-megapixel cameras back and front, 32 gigabytes of storage along with three gigabytes of RAM built in, and a 3,060 milliamp-hour battery that rivals the market leaders (scoring 612 minutes on our Web browsing battery life test; more complete battery testing is in progress). Rest assured, the Blackphone 2 will handle most daily usage with little trouble.

Another major improvement over the original Blackphone is the new phone's support for the Google Play app store. While the first Blackphone allowed purchases off the Amazon app store, it avoided the Google ecosystem by design. Blackphone 2 now includes both the Google Play app store and Silent Circle's own privacy-friendly Silent Store, the latter features apps such as the Ghostery browser, the SpiderOak encrypted file sharing service, and a social media privacy tool called Privately App.

One of the major back-end improvements that comes with the new Silent OS is over-the-air updates. The previous version of the Blackphone OS (originally called PrivatOS) required owners to download updates and reflash the phone's OS—not exactly the best security posture for a phone OS centered on security. Now both the core Silent Circle apps and the OS update via the cloud (though we did not get a chance to test such an update during the course of our review).

When it comes to computing and graphics performance, the Blackphone 2 is a bit further off the lead. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-core 1.7GHz ARM processor, used mostly in lower-cost smartphones, doesn't fare well against similarly priced contemporaries in our usual benchmarks. In fact, it lags a little behind other phones using the same chipset, such as the low-cost Xiaomi Mi 4i. But to be fair, this is likely at least in part because those phones run fairly stock Android builds. The Blackphone 2's Silent OS is only based on Android Lollipop 5.1.1. With a mix of Google integration, a tiny bit of Cyanogenmod (specifically, its File Manager), and some very deep security tweaks, Silent OS is by no means your standard Android.