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Jackson Chen

Phone makers can't stop reviving the BlackBerry keyboard

Blackberry Unihertz Kickstarter Android TCL

Long live the cellphone keyboard. Once synonmous with the word smartphone, BlackBerry devices and their iconic QWERTY keyboards quickly became extinct as soon as the iPhone and Android phones came out.

In 2020, TCL, who unwisely licensed out the BlackBerry branding to slap onto Android phones called it quits on keyboard phones. Earlier this year, BlackBerry services were turned off for all BBs for good. But the keyboard phone dream lives on. OnwardMobility seemed ready to carry on the BlackBerry’s legacy, but in February it said it’d be shutting down and no longer working on a new phone.

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