The brand of smartphones with a physical keyboard BlackBerry , whose products had stopped being manufactured in February, will be reborn once again and has announced that in 2021 it will launch new Android smartphones with a physical keyboard and support for 5G , after reaching an agreement with the American OnwardMobility and Chinese manufacturer FIH Mobile.
This announcement comes after the Chinese TCL, which had bought the brand in 2016 and relaunched it with new mobiles such as the most recent, BlackBerry KEY2 LE , decided in early 2020 to stop producing and selling mobiles of this brand from next August 31st.
Now, the American company Onwardmobility has announced an agreement with the BlackBerry brand and the Chinese manufacturer FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of the Chinese Foxconn – current manufacturer of the iPhone – to launch new devices of the brand, as confirmed by the American company in a statement. .
The mobiles of the new stage of BlackBerry will have a physical keyboard, as usual, but also for the first time with 5G connectivity to “increase productivity” for professional users, according to Onwardmobility. The new smartphones will maintain the Android operating system , already present in devices manufactured by TCL, and are expected to reach the market in Europe and North America in the first half of 2021.
“Business and professional users are eager to have secure 5G devices that enable productivity without sacrificing the user experience,” said OnwardMobility CEO Peter Franklin, who highlighted that “BlackBerry smartphones are known to protect communications, privacy and data ”. The US company Onwardmobility will be in charge of the plans and development of the BlackBerry brand in North America in the future, while FIH Mobile will design and manufacture the devices in China, according to the agreement reached
