In February 2020, TCL discontinued development of Android-powered BlackBerry phones after releasing models such as the BlackBerry KEYone, KEY2, KEY2 LE, and Motion.
After TCL withdrew, the BlackBerry brand was suddenly mentioned again 6 months later, in August 2020, when Onward Mobility announced that it had reached an agreement with BlackBerry to license the brand name for new smartphones expected to launch in the first half of 2021, with 5G support.
However, 2021 passed without any new BlackBerry products being introduced. By February 2022, BlackBerry had sold all of its mobile patents for $600 million. Just two weeks later, Onward Mobility confirmed that its plans to release a 5G-enabled BlackBerry phone were officially over.
Since then, there has been little news about BlackBerry, except for the launch of the Clicks keyboard case for some iPhone and Android models.
Now, a Reddit user named “coldheartedsigma” has revealed that a British company is looking for investors to fund a startup to pick up where Onward Mobility left off. The company plans to bring the BlackBerry brand back to the market with 5G-enabled phones and physical QWERTY keyboards.
While the Reddit user cannot name the company due to confidentiality agreements, he said he received a demo and took screenshots of some of the specs. The startup is in talks to exclusively license BlackBerry's patents. The first phone is expected to feature an AMOLED display, 12GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB of storage, a capacitive physical QWERTY keyboard, 5G connectivity, and AI capabilities.
While the product roadmap has been outlined with multiple models featuring QWERTY keyboards, no specific timeline has been mentioned. Currently, Malikie Innovations is the company that owns BlackBerry's mobile patents and is willing to license the 32,000 patents it has purchased from BlackBerry. The return of the BlackBerry brand is awaited, but it may still be a long way off.