After briefly dabbling with touchscreen-only phones, it looks like BlackBerry is getting back to developing phones with physical keyboards. The move probably won’t help convert iPhone addicts stick their phones in a blender and go buy a new BlackBerry. But it could help the company hold onto existing customers who prefer the feel of an actual keyboard to a virtual on-screen one.

The recently launched BlackBerry Passport has an entirely new, touch-sensitive and tiny keyboard below an enormous square screen. The upcoming BlackBerry Classic takes a different approach by packing a relatively high-resolution square display over a more traditional looking thumb keyboard.

While BlackBerry hasn’t shared many details about the upcoming Classic yet, a series of leaked photos and specs paint a pretty goo picture of what to expect.

blackberry classic_01

The BlackBerry Classic is expected to launch before the end of 2014, and if reports from N4BB, CrackBerry, and a number of their sources are correct, the phone will have:

  • 720 x 720 pixel, 3.46 inch TFT LCD touchscreen display
  • 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core CPU
  • 2GB RAM
  • 16GB storage
  • microSDXC card slot for up to 128GB of removable storage
  • 8MP rear camera with auto-focus and flash
  • 2MP fixed-focus front camera
  • 35-key backlity keyboard
  • Optical trackpad plus escape, menu, and other buttons.

Other features are said to include NFC, Miracast wireless display support, and video output via SlimPort.

All told, the BlackBerry Classic packs a lot of the features you’d expect from a modern smartphone… in a package that looks more like a traditional BlackBerry device aimed at folks who spend a lot of time using a mobile device for email, SMS, and other messaging tasks.

The phone’s also a lot smaller and easier to slide into a pocket than the BlackBerry Passport, which has a 4.5 inch square display and a body the size of an actual passport.

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7 replies on “BlackBerry Classic to sport 720 x 720px screen and a QWERTY keyboard (leaks)”

  1. Esperaba un hardware mas moderno, Tiene las mismas caracteristicas del Q10 de casi 2años, misma potencia de procesador, misma camara, misma RAM , en esencia es un Q10 con los tradicionales botones y trakpad. Dependiendo del precio, mejor junto mas dinero y compro un Passport ese si tiene un hardware a la altura de los top line del mercado.

  2. What Blackberry Classic customers will want is an experience having more of the features of BlackberryOS7, not just the trackpad. I’m hoping the combo of OS10.3 and trackpad will increase productivity to the speed of the OS7 devices. OS10 is great but it has a lot of consumer/consumption oriented features whereas Blackberry faithful are all productivity guys.

    Frankly swiping up to get to the homescreen versus the ‘escape’ button, I’ll take escape, just like clearing out the inbox is way faster on 10.3 and/or with a trackpad. Not to mention app-switching is faster with a physical button and getting the menu up without waiting for a loooooong press on the screen… god I hate long presses…

  3. Fairly confident that I’m not alone when I ask this; where’s that Manitoba Z30/50 refresh at? BB shouldn’t give up on full touch devices and oughta pull a Note challenger since biz/enterprise is their forte.

    /an Android user

  4. Put my tender phone in a blender and still I surrender.
    Like a chump…

  5. The specs on this kind of piss me off in comparison to the Passport. If anything, they should have parity for these are BOTH the flagships of BlackBerry going forward. Worse CPU, worse camera, worse RAM, worse internal storage…fail! It won’t be sold inexpensively either. This is BlackBerry cutting corners at the expense of whatever customers they have left. They’ll never learn. I really wanted to buy this phone, but not now.

    1. You’re so right epic fail….. They really have left the consumers out…. they are all about the prosumer now……

  6. Well, it’ll take 128 GB microSD Cards. That’s pretty good. I guess. Should be able to fit alot of movies converted to 720 X 405 resolution.

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