Chinese company is working on BlackBerry Key 2 clone with physical keyboard

Chinese smartphone maker Unihertz will soon start a Kickstarter campaign for the Titan Slim, a lightweight version of its Titan phone with a physical keyboard. At first glance, the phone is a clone of the BlackBerry Key2, but runs on Android.

The Chinese manufacturer makes more Android phones with physical keyboards, which are strongly inspired by BlackBerry phones, but equipped with Android. The Titan Slim is the thinner brother of the Titan Pocketa ruggedized phone with a 3.1″ screen and a physical keyboard, and from the Unihertz Titan from 2019.

The new model would have a 4.3 “screen, a 48-megapixel camera and up to 256GB of memory, at least those are the rumors. Unihertz has not yet confirmed this. Like the Titan Pocket, the phone would run on Android 11, powered by a MediaTek processor, and is equipped with Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, dual SIM and a fingerprint reader and face unlock. The keyboard can also be used as a trackpad.

PC Mag expect the phone to cost less than $400. The Titan Pocket costs $300.

The phone is externally a clone of the BlackBerry Key2, which came out in 2018 with Android 8. The screen does have a slightly larger size, but a lower resolution, if the specs are correct. The Titan Slim also has a slightly different key combination and a small, red power button on the side. The phone should appear on Kickstarter, writes Unihertz, but it is not a crowdfunding campaign. Unihertz uses Kickstarter as a sales platform, just like with previous phones.