Blackberry saw success in the 2000s, before falling into the market dominated by giants like Samsung, Huawei and Apple. A few attempts to make a strong comeback with a collaboration with TCL have failed miserably over the past decade. But the Canadian brand does not intend to give up. With a brand new partner, Blackberry plans to launch a new model of smartphone soon, which will have a physical keyboard.
A collaboration with OnwardMobility
In the era of touch-tone smartphones, Blackberry was among the major market leaders along with other manufacturers such as Nokia and Motorola. Unfortunately, all of these brands have struggled to keep up with the new trend imposed by Apple and Samsung with touchless smartphones. The brand had of course tried to remake itself on the smartphone market in the company of TCL. The two manufacturers had jointly launched three models (Key One, Key 2 and Key 2 LE) without meeting any real success. The flop ended the collaboration between the two high tech giants.
Blackberry was quick to find a new partner. This time, the brand is teaming up with OnwardMobility to develop what could be a new line of smartphones. It is therefore this American company that has the very difficult task of ensuring the return of Blackberry smartphones on the market. To achieve this, it will work with Foxconn’s subsidiary, FIH Mobile. This collaboration would lead to a first rather surprising product for our time: a smartphone with a physical keyboard.
A 5G smartphone with keys
This new Blackberry smartphone was presented by the CEO of OnwardMobility in person. Peter Franklin granted an interview to Nikkei to discuss this rather original project. It is a 5G terminal with keys, like the cell phones of yesteryear. According to Peter Franklin, these “smartphones equipped with a physical keyboard can help increase productivity. ”Thus, this new smartphone from Blackberry should be aimed primarily at professionals, like the majority of the brand’s older models.
Despite this retrograde concept, the flagship of Blackberry will not be an obsolete mobile. On the contrary, this smartphone would be compatible with 5G. It would also ship a high-end photo module, unlike previous models which failed to break into the market. Would this smartphone come to compete with big names like the Huawei Mate 40 Pro which was voted best 5G smartphone of 2020? We still doubt it?
Moreover, there is also doubt about the effectiveness of this strategic choice of a smartphone with Blackberry keys. With the trend towards folding smartphones, it will be difficult for the Canadian brand to seduce with a trendy concept two decades ago that failed during the last wave of Blackberry mobiles. Anyway, Peter Franklin assured that he will give us news of this smartphone in the near future. In the meantime, you can go further in the originality by discovering the Aurora 7, a seven-monitor laptop PC from the Expanscape brand.
–
