BlackBerry confirms that another keyboard phone is coming

Rumors suggested BlackBerry had another phone in the works for 2016, and this particular option would sport a keyboard. Well, they’ve come out to confirm that is, in fact, happening.

Company CEO John Chen didn’t have much in the way of details beyond that basic fact, but prior murmurings have painted a nice picture in regards to what’s coming.

For starters, those hoping that BlackBerry’s signature keyboard style will live on without BlackBerry actually making the phones needn’t worry. The company is licensing the exact design of their keyboard out to the companies making their phones (for now, that’s almost exclusively TCL, the name behind the Alcatel brand).

As such, we can probably expect some sort of QWERTY slider, though the orientation of such a device is still in the air. Some are hoping and expecting BlackBerry to stick with the same vertical-based form factor we got with the PRIV, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

[via Bloomberg]