You may remember a time when BlackBerry was a popular smartphone brand in Malaysia – a reputation fueled by its popularity not just among business folk, but fedora-donning yuppie college students too, with their phones in one hand and a cup of iced caramel macchiato in the other.
Well, the likes of Apple and Samsung took precedence and knocked BlackBerry of its perch – but if you long for days gone by, you’ll be glad to know that BlackBerry is being revived once again!
OnwardMobility – an American startup – will have chosen to take the mantle and will be working alongside FIH Mobile – who are producers of new Nokia products – to develop new BlackBerry smartphones which will arrive in 2021.
New #BlackBerry #5G Devices are coming to market from @_OnwardMobility https://t.co/5U7tFOA0Y8 @BlackBerry #FIHMobile #teamblackberry #smartphone #android #enterprise #government
— OnwardMobility (@_OnwardMobility) August 19, 2020
The interesting thing is, BlackBerry looks to be going back to its roots and will offer a hardware keyboard as well as 5G connectivity. BlackBerry CEO John Chen says that the company is excited that customers will experience the enterprise and government level security and mobile productivity the new BlackBerry 5G smartphone will offer; this suggests that BlackBerry’s target market is still very much in the business sector.
The phones will first be available in North America and Europe and will run on Android. There’s no word on whether it’ll come to Malaysia, and we think the brand will find it difficult here as they’ll have to compete with so many well-established brands. In any case, we’ll be sure to keep you updated on the latest happenings on BlackBerry when more information is made available.
