Yeah, I know I’m nuts when it comes to smartphones but my smartphone obsession is how I landed this gig (it’s a great story that I will divulge one day) and why I’ve been here 16 years. One thing I like to do with an older phone that I never owned (and even those I did) is go to YouTube and replay the ads, reviews, and other videos about these devices. One phone that has really caught my eye…again…is the BlackBerry Passport.
The BlackBerry Passport has become a cult phone
What made the Passport so unique was the 4.5-inch display with a square 1440 x 1440 resolution screen. The Passport featured a hybrid physical/virtual keyboard that relied on virtual rows on the touchscreen to type lower-case letters, numbers, and punctuation. If you check out ads run at the time by BlackBerry, you’ll see that the company used the phrase “Work Wide” to promote the phone.
The BlackBerry Passport and its unique wide screen was released in 2014. | Image credit-PhoneArena
These ads would show the advantages of using a phone with a wider display. For example, one commercial showed a doctor able to see more of a patient’s X-ray on the Passport than another doctor looking at the same X-ray using an iPhone. The gist of the ad was that the ‘Berry wielding physician, being able to see a complete imaging at one time, could diagnose the patient quicker and more accurately.
Powered by a Snapdragon 801 application processor (AP), there was speculation that a variant of the phone would be powered by Android although that never happened. Instead, BlackBerry 10 was pre-installed. In our review we cited the long battery life and snappy performance of the Passport and gave it a rating of 7.5 out of 10.The Passport was originally released in September 2014 and while the phone did get noticed, sales were just not strong enough to stop the continued downward spiral BlackBerry was experiencing. Those who were hoping for an Android-powered Passport or wanted one with more updated specs were happy to go after the Unihertz Titan. Released in December 2019 by the manufacturer of rugged phones, the Titan was a Passport clone that featured the 4.5-inch 1440 x 1440 resolution display used on the Passport. The Titan also used a hybrid physical QWERTY keyboard with touchscreen rows for typing. It featured a massive 6000mAh battery, launched with Android 9 and received the Android 10 update.
A Chinese company called Zinwa Technologies has plans to bring back older BlackBerry modelsincluding the Passport, with updated internal components and improved specs. These phones will be powered by Android. The first model it will bring back is the BlackBerry Q20 (aka the BlackBerry Classic) for $400. It will sell a a conversion kit for those who already own the phone for $300 . The Zinwa Q25, as the phone will be called will keep the original 720 x 720 display, the outer shell, physical keyboard, and LED notification light.
The goal is to keep the old BlackBerry look and feel but with internal components brought up to date. For example, the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 application processor will be replaced with a MediaTek Helio99 AP. The 2GB of LPDDR2 RAM will be swapped out for 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM. The 32GB of internal storage is getting pushed up to 256GB of UFS 2.x storage. The phone will sport a 50MP rear-camera and an 8MP front-facing snapper. All global 4G LTE band will be supported.
Other models to get revised could include the Passport and the KEYone
The Zinwa Q25 will run Android 13 out of the box with no plans to update to a later version. There will be regular security updates to exterminate bugs. Other features on the phone include a headphone jack, NFC, USB-C, a microSD slot and a single SIM slot.
The Zinwa Q25 will ship in August. The exciting news is that the company plans to offer similar upgrades to the BlackBerry KEYone and the Passport.
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