Another spiritual BlackBerry smartphone successor has emerged in the form of the Titan 2.
We’re not sure the recent spate of keyboard-packing smartphones and peripherals is enough to declare a full-blown BlackBerry resurgence, but there are clearly some people out there who want to make it a thing.
The latest of those are the people of Unihertz, a Chinese manufacturer of compact Android phones. It has just announced the Titan 2, a phone that appears to take the BlackBerry Passport (from way back in 2014) as its template.
Just to drive home the niche nature of this device, Unihertz is making the Titan 2 available through a Kickstarter campaign – though it appears to be going extremely well.
At the time of writing, the project had hit £716,580 of pledges against a modest goal of £72,936 (that’s $100,000, if you’re wondering why it’s such a weird figure), with 28 days still to run. By hitting its stretch goal, every Titan 2 will now ship with a TPU case.
Titan 2 specs
The Titan 2 will run on MediaTek’s Dimensity 7300 – a lower-mid-range chip most recently seen on the Motorola Edge 60 Fusion, the CMF Phone 2 Pro, and the Oppo Reno 12 Pro 5G. This will be backed by 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.
It’ll measure 137.8 x 88.7 x 10.8mm and will weigh 235g, so it’s not exactly going to be compact. There’ll be a 5,050mAh battery powering it along, together with 33W charging.
Unihertz
It’s a decidedly modest specification, but of course the whole point of it is that backlit physical QWERTY keyboard. The manufacturer claims that you can assign every key to both long-press and short-press shortcuts, making this a potential productivity powerhouse. There’s full tough sensitivity for scrolling and cursor fine-control, too.
This keyboard is topped by a square 4.5-inch 1,440 x 1,440 display. Interestingly, Unihertz has also added a second 2-inch 410 x 502 display to the back of the device, allowing you to pick up on any notifications (and the time) while the phone is face-down. It can also serve as a selfie viewfinder.
Indeed, this secondary display forms part of the phone’s camera module, which incorporates a 50MP main camera and an 8MP 3.4x telephoto. There’s a 32MP camera around front.
Connectivity options include 5G, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, dual-band GPS, an IR emitter, and an FM radio. There’s a fingerprint sensor and two programmable buttons on the side of the device. It’ll run on Android 15.
Titan 2 pricing and availability
The Titan 2 is expected to start mass production in September, with shipping set to commence in October.
Pricing should be set at around the $399 mark, though early backers can still slap down a pre-order for a handset at a discounted $269.
