After Slider, BlackBerry may bring back a Flip-Phone from death

Remember the good old days of mobile phones when every other person had a unique handset? Some loved the typical T9, while others opted fancy sliders and flip phones. But since iOS and Android started dominating the mobile industry, phones have become boring with large touch slab on front and designer skills crafting it. BlackBerry is the single most company which is  releasing different types of form factors in the market today and just after announcing a slider phone for later this year, the company’s newly patent records hint a comeback of flip styled handset.

BlackBerry is not giving up the physical keyboard anytime soon. That makes them standout and the market for it is relatively bigger and stronger than its claimed. Rather releasing the qwerty in same fashion every year, BlackBerry started taking bold steps by introducing a wide BlackBerry Passport smartphone in 2014. Though the Internet and biased tech “experts” got their new punch bag, the Passport has been highly acclaimed by many professionals. In continuation of innovative products, BlackBerry is bringing back the slider phone later this year which is also keypad equipped. BlackBerry CEO John Chen repeatedly said the company is heading to launch various types of innovations and the patent found by BlackBerryExperience today leads to another interesting blueprints from BlackBerry.

The Patent: Clamshell portable electronic device with input device in hinge

What Is It?

It’s a clamshell (flip phone) that has buttons on the hinge. These buttons would be active when the phone is closed, and inactive when the phone is open. Sounds interesting isn’t it?

BlackBerry has released a couple of clamshell devices in the past – the Pearl Flip in 2008 and the Style in 2010. This patent is much newer than that and it’s good to see that the company is even looking in this direction at all. There are few more patents highlighted along. Read about them here.

The market is open, and the mobile region is the most active of all. Though this is JUST a patent with no guarantee of production, show us your excitement and support for flip phones in comments section below.