A 5G BlackBerry smartphone is coming!

You thought BlackBerrys were gone. But there’s a new 5G model in the works! This was confirmed by Onward Mobility, a Texas-based tech company, that its 5G BlackBerry smartphone is still in the works.

As of now, there haven’t been any new BlackBerry phones for almost four years, and that’s due to a lot of people who used to be licensed partners of the brand ending their relationships with BlackBerry.

In 2016, TCL signed a deal with BlackBerry to make BlackBerry-branded phones. During that time, it made a few phones, like the BlackBerry Motion, the BlackBerry Keyone, the BlackBerry KEY2 (with a physical keyboard), and the BlackBerry KEY2 LE, which was its last before the deal was officially over in 2020. The BlackBerry Evolve and Evolve X were also made in India by Optiemus Infracom and sold in the country.

New license partner Onward Mobility was revealed in 2020, with plans to ship the first 5G BlackBerry smartphone in the first half of 2021. As it turned out, that didn’t happen, and there were rumours that the company had gone out of business. Contrary to popular belief, the brand is still in business, as confirmed by news on the company’s blog. The previous year was difficult for Onward Mobility, as constraints hindered the debut of the widely anticipated device. 

The phone is still under wraps, but it has been confirmed that it will have 5G connectivity and a physical keyboard. Also powered by Android, the device will be manufactured in collaboration with FIH Mobile, a Foxconn subsidiary. Even though Onward Mobility says it will be giving regular updates starting in January 2022, it is expected that some information about the design and specifications will be made public before it is even announced.

Given that the phone was originally planned for release in 2021, there is a good probability that when it is released, the specifications and features will be considered old. It is possible that some parts will be improved because of the delay.

Onward Mobility plans to launch its BlackBerry smartphone in North America and Europe in 2020. After last year’s setbacks, that is projected to remain unchanged. It also revealed plans to introduce the phone in Asia, but only after the above regions. For now, the launch date remains unknown.