A team from China is making the old 2014 BlackBerry Q20 Classic useful again. Their plan, called the Zinwa Q25 Pro, means swapping out the old phone's inside parts for new ones. It keeps the known square screen and the full keyboard.
You can place an order before it's out for $400, set to ship in August. If you have a BlackBerry Classic, you can get just the upgrade parts for $300.
To build the Q25 Pro, Zinwa uses the old BlackBerry Q20 Classic body and puts in a board they made just for this. Here's what's on the new board:
- Chip: MediaTek Helio G99
- Memory: 12GB LPDDR4x RAM
- Storage: 256GB UFS 2.x
- Port: USB Type-C for power and data
- Ways to connect: 4G LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC
These parts work with the old BlackBerry Classic screen and keyboard. Both the full phone and upgrade kit will have a new 3,000 mAh battery and better cameras 50MP on the back and 8MP on the front.
Here are things to know before you go for it:
- System: It will come with Android 13. Zinwa will send out updates for bugs and new stuff, but they might not offer new versions of Android, like 14 or 15, which they talked about on their Discord.
- In the making: The parts are still being made, so the August ship date might move.
- Not many to go round: They can only make a few since they need old BlackBerry Q20s.
Zinwa wants to bring back other BlackBerry types, like the BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry KeyOne. They haven't shared when or how much these might cost.
