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The teaser image of OnwardMobility.
OnwardMobility
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The BlackBerry Priv, actually BlackBerry, felt like the company’s latest attempt at a smartphone.
Ron Amadeo
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TCL’s BlackBerry KeyOne. It seems at a distance fine, but TCL was too much for charging there.
TCL
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TCL also turned into really sad offers like this “BlackBerry DTEK50”, which is just a rebranded TCL Alcatel phone.
TCL / Ron Amadeo
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The BlackBerry Key2 of 2018. Same as the KeyOne, but in more colors. Honestly, at this point we lost interest.
TCL
Like a bad zombie movie sequel, BlackBerry phones come back from the dead, a second time. After TCL tried and failed to make a business out of selling the BlackBerry brand and selling Android phones, a new startup called OnwardMobility sounds like it will pick up essentially the same gamebook in 2021.
There are not too many details yet, but OnwardMobility has released a press release and website with the new BlackBerry phone plan. The company says it will “create a new 5G BlackBerry Android smartphone with physical keyboard, in the first half of 2021 in North America and Europe.” The press release also states that “BlackBerry smartphones are known for protecting communications, privacy and data”, so expect a lot of encryption. There are also different nods for business customers – in fact, it all sounds the same old BlackBerry.
Phones with BlackBerry brand of BlackBerry died in 2016 when the company stopped trading the handset. BlackBerry has been sticking with its own OS for too long, while Android and iOS duopoly have taken over the world, fueling the company’s sales. It wasn’t until 2015 that BlackBerry made its first Android device, the BlackBerry Priv, but then it was a “bet the business” situation and the Priv flop. BlackBerry terminated the license of the brand to Chinese company TCL Communications, which continued to produce shamelessly redesigned flat phones and a few loyal but expensive QWERTY bar phones such as the BlackBerry KeyOne and the Key2. TCL was no more successful than BlackBerry selling Android phones, and in February 2020, BlackBerry announced that TCL was leaving. The licensing process for TCL actually expires at the end of this month, and BlackBerry already has a new suite in line.
The press release from OnwardMobility says that BlackBerry and FIH Mobile will be involved in the design and manufacture of the new devices, which is a good sign. FIH Mobile is a subsidiary of Foxconn. While “Foxconn” is a contract manufacturer that will build your design exactly, Foxconn’s FIH Mobile wing is a turn-key smartphone operation that does product development and design, manufacturing and services and after-sales repairs. FIH Mobile currently handles the manufacturing and design of HMD’s Nokia phones, of which we are big fans.
When TCL signed its BlackBerry deal, it not only licensed the brand, it also obtained a license for BlackBerry’s keyboard patents, allowing it to create QWERTY pads with authentic feel. The press release does not mention patents directly, but it does say that BlackBerry is involved in the design, suggesting that it has signed a similar deal.
The BlackBerry proper lines of BlackBerry proper and TCL both had the advantage of being basically the only hardware QWERTY Android phones on the market, but twice now consumers have shown no enormous interest in that idea. It’s not clear why OnwardMobility thinks it can succeed where TCL failed, but we’ll see what the company’s sales are when the phone launches next year.
