Legendary BlackBerry Phones Are Making a Comeback
A company from China will internally refurbish BlackBerry phones and sell them with the Android operating system.
Chinese company Zinwa Technologies plans to revive older BlackBerry phone models, including the Passport, with updated internal components and enhanced specifications. These phones will run on Android.
The first model to return to the market will be the BlackBerry Q20 (also known as the BlackBerry Classic), priced at $400. They will also offer a conversion kit for those who already own the phone, priced at $300. The device will be sold under the name Zinwa Q25 and will retain the original 720 x 720 screen, external casing, physical keyboard, and notification LED light.
The goal is to preserve the old BlackBerry look and feel, but with modernized internal components. For example, the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 processor will be replaced with the MediaTek Helio99 AP. Instead of 2GB of LPDDR2 RAM, the device will feature 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and the internal memory of 32GB will be expanded to 256GB of UFS 2.x storage. The phone will have a 50MP rear camera and an 8MP front camera. All global 4G LTE networks will be supported.
It is possible that other models, such as the Passport and KEYone, will receive similar upgrades.
The Zinwa Q25 will ship with Android 13, and no upgrades to newer system versions are planned. However, there will be regular security updates for bug fixes. Other features of the phone include a 3.5mm headphone jack, NFC, USB-C port, a microSD card slot, and a single SIM card slot.
The Zinwa Q25 will begin shipping in August, and the exciting news is that the company also plans similar upgrades for the BlackBerry KEYone and Passport models.
