Sketchy social media post gives BlackBerry fans hope for the return of the smartphone brand
In February 2020, after licensing the BlackBerry name and releasing models like the BlackBerry KEYone, the BlackBerry KEY2, the BlackBerry KEY2 LE, and the BlackBerry Motion, Chinese manufacturer TCL decided to give up trying to convince consumers that Android-driven BlackBerry phones could compete in the smartphone industry. Just when it appeared that the once iconic BlackBerry brand was dead, a company appeared out of nowhere in an attempt to save the brand.
six months later, in August 2020, a company with the moniker of Onward Mobility said that it had come to terms with BlackBerry to license its name on new smartphones expected to be released in the first half of 2021. These phones would be the first carrying the BlackBerry name to support 5G. But the writing appeared to be on the wall when 2021 came and went without a new BlackBerry phone introduced. In February 2022, BlackBerry sold off its mobile patents for $600 million; a little more than two weeks later, Onward Mobility confirmed that its dream of releasing 5G-enabled BlackBerry phones had ended.
We hadn't heard much about BlackBerry since then, except to report on the launch of the Clicks keyboard case which adds a physical QWERTY to certain iPhone and Android models. But there is the possibility that a faint heartbeat has been detected in that lifeless body called a BlackBerry phone. A Redditor with the user name "coldheartedsigma" posted that a U.K. company is speaking with investors in an attempt to raise money via a pre-seed funding round. This is the first stage of fundraising for a startup company.
This company plans on picking up where Onward Mobility called it quits. In other words, this firm is looking to bring back the BlackBerry name to the smartphone market and offer 5G enabled BlackBerry handsets carrying physical QWERTY keyboards.
This is supposedly an edited screenshot from the pitch deck sent to investors interested in the unnamed company looking to release new BlackBerry phones. | Image credit-Reddit
The Redditor said that his company signed a non-disclosure agreement so he couldn't reveal the name of the U.K. firm nor could he show us the designs for the first 5G BlackBerry phone. He did say that he received the company's pitch deck and took a screenshot of the slide showing the design and some specs. We suggest that you take this with a grain of salt.
Before we get to the specs, the post says that the startup is negotiating for the exclusive licensing of BlackBerry patents. We should point out that the Redditor edited the screenshot so he wouldn't get into trouble for posting it on social media.
The first BlackBerry to be made by this startup will supposedly include:
- An AMOLED display of unknown size.
- 12GB RAM with 256GB/512GB of storage.
- A capacitive physical QWERTY keyboard.
- 5G connectivity.
- Generative AI capabilities.
- Android 15.
Supposedly, there is a product roadmap that includes multiple products sporting physical QWERTY keyboards. No timeline was mentioned and we assume that the first phone to come from this startup is still at least a couple of years away at best. By the way, the company that currently owns BlackBerry's mobile patents is Malikie Innovations. The company's website says that it is willing to license the 32,000 patents it bought from BlackBerry.
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