Physical keyboards are not things we expect to see on smartphones these days. Even with that, BlackBerry seems to be the only company that sees the relevance of physical keyboards and will continue producing smartphones with these keyboards going forward.
Even as BlackBerry plans to jump ship into Android, the company will not be ditching its signature look, the physical keyboard. Alex Thurber, Senior Vice President for BlackBerry Global Device Sales confirmed this through Twitter saying, “In response to some recent press reports, I want to be clear that BlackBerry users have nothing to fear – the keyboard is here to stay.”
This revelation comes days after the company announced that it will discontinue the BlackBerry Classic in order to “to keep innovating and advancing [its] portfolio.” After this announcement, rumors surfaced indicating that the company was also going to do away with the physical keyboard. This now turns out to be false and even though we may not see BlackBerry Classic smartphones anymore, the physical keyboard is here to stay.
Read More: End of The Road for The BlackBerry Classic as The Company Announces That It Will Stop Producing Them
BlackBerry’s current devices, the Priv and Passport all come with physical keyboards. The Priv is an Android-powered and has a physical keyboard and this shows you that the company is not going to ditch its signature look just because it has jumped into Android.
This is definitely good news for the true BlackBerry enthusiasts who can calm down now that they know the physical keyboard is not going anywhere.
Going into the future, we expect to see three Android-powered smartphones from BlackBerry in the next 9 months. One of the devices will come with an old-school keyboard and this further supports Thurber’s comments. The three will be mid and high end devices.
Also Read: BlackBerry to Release 3 Android Smartphones by Early 2017