BlackBerry: New 5G Smartphone with keyboard will be available from 2021

A new company, the Onward Mobility, promises a 5G BlackBerry with a keyboard in the US during the first half of the following year.

ΑAfter tcl ended its partnership with BlackBerry in February, many worried that the historic name and keypad smartphones in general would disappear from the market.

Today, a new company called Onward Mobility says he has made a deal with the company BlackBerry to use its name and intellectual property to create a new Android smartphone with keyboard, which will be released in the US and Europe in 2021.

"We really see a need for one 5G BlackBerry"Android smartphone with a physical keyboard and being a flagship device" said Peter Franklin, CEO of OnwardMobility.

Η BlackBerry is a strong brand with a huge heritage. Keyboard phones were popular in the early '00s for professionals and teens who were constantly texting, but the company declined to switch to touch screens and an easy-to-use app store after 2010.

In 2016, BlackBerry, now a software company, licensed its name and IP to TCL to make a range of BlackBerry Android phones, including KeyOne, Key2 and Key2 LE, which were decent devices but did not have a huge market impact. TCL said in February that it would stop selling BlackBerry devices this August.

This left BlackBerry looking for a partner for North America and OnwardMobility came to the fore.

"I've always been a fan of BlackBerry devices. Many of the team have. I saw a growing need for security and productivity in the field, especially among companies and governments that are quite interested in security without compromising productivity. The team really got together around the idea of ​​a safer phone and we presented this vision to BlackBerry," he said.

The new BlackBerry fills a position that is not served by any other manufacturer. TCL was the last company to sell QWERTY keyboard devices through providers, without them, the only keyboard smartphone currently available in the US is the unlocked Unihertz Titan. (There is a British company that sells a phone with a keyboard called Fxtec Pro1.)

Ο Franklin did not say much about the design of the new BlackBerry or features, but gave some information. The phone will be a world flagship Android. It will have competitive prices. It will have both Sub-6GHz and millimeter-wave 5G, It will have a top camera and it will run Android applications plus BlackBerry security software. It works with US suppliers to bring it to market.

""Our goal is really to make security as smooth as possible," Franklin said. "Some of these features and functions have not been available to consumers in the past. You do not need a huge IT department to take advantage of our features."

With Google in control of so much of Android and being a giant database, Franklin was asked if his phone could protect users from Google, but said more details would be available later.

As for the keyboard, he said the classic Bold 9900 was BlackBerry's favorite.

"To me, the keyboard is one of those things where your brain subconsciously understands the very subtle differences between devices, in a matter of minutes." he said. "It is of the utmost importance to me that… we have a great experience and a great sense both of the keyboard's accuracy and how the keys respond and its feel."

Who are these people?

Franklin's background is in business software and according to his LinkedIn, he has had roles in eight companies over the past seven years. The company is headquartered in Austin, and uses FIH to make the phones. FIH is owned by Foxconn and also manufactures Nokia HMD phones.

The company's key staff seems to have a lot of ties to Sonim. THE Jeff Pon, was at Sonim for 11 years. The Vice President of Sales has been with Sonim for three years. THE Pam Norris was Vice President of Product Management at Sonim before moving to Huawei.

This is somewhat encouraging. The super-hardphone manufacturer sells heavily to large corporations and industrial customers, but also has products at all three major US provider companies. So OnwardMobility will have the relationships to do this job.

Franklin says the new BlackBerry will be released in the US, Canada and Europe in the first half of 2021.

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