The classic BlackBerry is back from the dead – but from an unlikely source

It's been a long time since we've seen a proper BlackBerry. What was once the smartphone of choice for a huge number of people, especially business folks, is now a distant memory. The last model to launch from the long defunct brand was the BlackBerry Key2 LE and that came out back in 2018.

Well, we aren't here to tell you that BlackBerry itself is making a comeback – that ship has seemingly sailed. However, we are here to tell you that there's a keyboard-equipped smartphone on its way, that takes more than a leaf out of the BlackBerry playbook.

What is the Zinwa Q27?

We wrote about the brand back in June, when it planned to restomod older BlackBerry devices. But Zinwa Technologies is now making its own Android phone with serious old school BlackBerry vibes.

The Zinwa Q27 (via Techradar) looks very similar to the old classic BlackBerry devices many of us fell in love with – especially in the images shared by Redditor jackshowerwalls.

The new smartphone reportedly has a 3.92-inch display with a 1,080 x 1,240 pixel resolution and a 31:27 aspect ratio. More importantly however, below that pretty small display by current smartphone standards, is a physical QWERTY keyboard.

The Zinwa Q27 features a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 processor under its hood and it has a MediaTek NPU 655 too, which Techradar suggests means the smartphone will have a focus on AI tasks. There's 12GB of RAM (LPDDR5) and 256GB of storage, so in terms of specs, it's doing OK so far.

There's also support for a microSD card, something of a rarity in smartphones these days, while eSIM is supported. Unlike the latest Apple iPhone Air though, there is also a nano SIM slot for a physical SIM too.

Software-wise, the Zinwa Q27 will run on Android 16, so it's up to date on this front too.

The only slightly bad news, apart from the fact that we don't yet know how much it will cost, is that the Zinwa Q27 isn't going to be ready for mass production until at least May 2026. Still, if you want a BlackBerry-style smartphone with modern-day smarts, then it might be worth the wait.