OnePlus is allegedly toying with the idea of a smartphone with a single large rotating camera




Based off a patent from 2020 discovered by LetsGoDigital, OnePlus could possibly be working on a smartphone with a single primary lens that rotates independently, eliminating tilt while filming videos for more stabilized footage.

The details or the functionalities of such a camera remain unknown, although LetsGoDigital tapped into the talents of Technizo Concept to help render this idea to life. The results feel like a fusion of OnePlus’ later phones along with a camera that’s highly reminiscent of the Nokia Lumia 1020. The camera, according to the patent, isn’t like your pop-up camera, which featured on the OnePlus 7 Pro, but rather, uses a series of magnets to rotate in its place like a turntable. While the immediate benefits of such a shooting mode aren’t entirely apparent, it definitely goes a long way in eliminating jittery footage caused by the hands shaking while capturing videos. The rotating camera can keep the video 100% vertical or horizontal regardless of how you hold your phone (even if you switch orientations, the video still remains the way it was), and can even help effectively capture panoramas without any tilting. Combine this with the massive camera’s built-in image stabilization system and Hasselblad’s imaging tech and you’ve got a phone that packs an incredibly powerful shooter (along with what I can only assume is a large sensor to match) that gives you stellar images as well as shake-free videos.

A semi-detailed look at the camera system shows how massive the lens is in comparison with the ones seen on phones from the competition. Call it an ‘all eggs in one basket’ approach if you will, but the fact that OnePlus is even working on such a system shows their level of faith and commitment to the idea of an all-powerful single-lens camera. A larger sensor allows more light to pass into the camera too, making it easier to take ‘portrait blur’ shots, night-shots, and even high-speed photography. It’s worthwhile noting that the concept’s camera doesn’t pop in or out like a point-and-shoot. It stays just the way it is, with a camera bump that still feels respectably on the lower side.

While the concept certainly evokes a pretty strong reaction (you’re either going to be really intrigued by it or you’re going to hate it), let’s not forget that the concept is just that… a concept. Companies are always quick to patent technologies that they value as intellectual property, but it isn’t entirely necessary that every patented technology will make its way into a phone. The idea of a single-lens camera in the year 2022 seems decidedly bizarre (especially after OnePlus already announced the 10 Pro just this month with a multi-lens setup), but given the dizzying number of changes happening at OnePlus ever since their parent company Oppo decided to take over, it’s fair to imagine that the future for OnePlus isn’t going to be business as usual.

Designer: Technizo Concept & LetsGoDigital

Images via LetsGoDigital

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Motorola wrap-around display phone concept is pretty but also pretty impractical

A phone that’s almost 100% screen has some benefits, but the ergonomic and practical concerns could outweigh those.

Most of the time we spend on our smartphones is, of course, spent on the screen. It is, after all, the primary point of interaction and feedback on modern mobile devices. Despite its importance, the screen actually covers less than half of a phone’s surface, which some might consider being a waste of space. Unsurprisingly, phone makers have been trying to come up with ways to take advantage of all the places where you can put a display on the phone, and Motorola’s patent reveals how that beautiful but unusual design can actually become useful.

Designer: Parvez Khan (Technizo Concept) for LetsGoDigital

Phones with displays that wrap around the body and leave almost nothing uncovered are right up there with foldable phones, transparent displays, and holograms that spark people’s imaginations. Given how small phones are compared to laptops or even tablets, it’s understandable that manufacturers and consumers will want to take advantage of every piece of real estate available on the pocketable device. Motorola is hardly the first to try, but it is one of the few to go the extra mile and explain why you might want to have an all-display phone.

Flexibility will be the name of the game for a phone where there is practically no front or back. No matter how you pull it out from your pocket or your back, that side facing you will always be the front, and the software will adjust the elements on the screen to match. You might not even have to fully pull out the phone, as long as you can see a small part of the screen. Again, the software could adjust the user interface elements, so you can immediately see who’s calling and swipe to reject or accept the call, even if only the “bottom” part of the phone is visible from your pocket.

Such a phone with a wrap-around display will have to do more work than most phones to pull this off. For one, it will need to use a variety of sensors to determine which direction the phone is facing in a pocket. The software running on the phone needs to be especially dynamic, as it needs to shift UI elements around to match the position and orientation of the phone. There are no physical volume controls, for example, and the phone will have to know on which side to place those depending on how a person is holding it.

Those might be easier to pull off than resolving some usability and ergonomic concerns that an all-screen phone might introduce. Phones whose screens curve off to the sides are sometimes criticized for accidental taps from palms for fingers. An all-screen phone might not have room for cameras either, and the current state of under-display cameras still leaves a lot to be desired. And then there’s the problem that dropping the phone on any side can actually damage the screen, knocking scores off its repairability and sustainability.

The post Motorola wrap-around display phone concept is pretty but also pretty impractical first appeared on Yanko Design.

PlayStation 5 Miles Morales-Edition Controller design revealed just as the new Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse trailer drops





Just last year, digital artist Giuseppe Spinelli collaborated with LetsGoDigital to debut artwork for the limited edition Sony PlayStation 5 Spider-Man Miles Morales console. Initially created as concept artwork to celebrate the launch of the Miles Morales game on the PS5, LetsGoDigital and Spinelli (known by his internet moniker Snoreyn) eventually managed to produce a few limited edition faceplates for sale around Black Friday in 2020.

Almost like clockwork, as the Part One trailer for the upcoming Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse movie dropped on the internet, Spinelli revealed that he had, in fact, secretly been working along with airbrush artist Enrico Bertagnoli (aka Berta) to create a few custom Spider-Man-themed PS5 DualSense controllers too!

The controllers are based off Spinelli’s original design back from October 2020 and feature an all-black matte exterior with metallic red accents on the front, and a gloss/matte black-on-black artwork at the backside. The actual work of physically painting the controllers was carried out by ace Italian airbrush artist Enrico Bertagnoli, featuring details all the way down to spray-painted accents on the action buttons and even the words ‘Be Yourself’ scrawled in graffiti fashion across the touchpad on top.

The end result looks remarkably vivid, mirroring the mysterious black and red beauty of Miles Morales’ spidey suit from the movie. Bertagnoli meticulously spray-painted over the white parts of the controller, covering them in a rich chrome red, before masking out the webbing design and the text + symbols on the touchpad and buttons and giving the entire controller a coat of textured matte black. The result isn’t just visual, it’s tactile too, as your fingers feel the difference between the matte and gloss elements both on the front as well as on the back, which has a large glossy spider symbol.

While the faceplate for the actual PS5 console was made available for sale last year (as a limited edition drop), the controllers aren’t being sold the same way… partially because they’re painted entirely by hand in a ridiculously effort-intensive process. The few units that Bertagnoli and Spinelli created are being preserved as memorabilia, with one of them even being donated to the Bonami Gaming Console Museum in The Netherlands. The controller sits in a bespoke framed casing, housed behind a piece of glass with the creators’ internet monikers, Snoreyn and Berta, mentioned on the front.

That being said, they’re not entirely against the idea of bulk-producing controllers if enough people express interest (there’s even a mockup of the packaging box at the bottom of the article)… although don’t expect this to come cheap, or fast, thanks to a combination of supply chain issues and the fact that each controller is painstakingly painted manually. If you’re interested, however, in getting your hands on a custom PS5 Spider-Man Miles Morales Edition DualSense Controller, just drop in a comment or DM on Berta or Snoreyn’s social handles!

Images via LetsGoDigital

The post PlayStation 5 Miles Morales-Edition Controller design revealed just as the new Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse trailer drops first appeared on Yanko Design.

Huawei’s grand comeback? Mate 50 Pro concept renders show a curved arc-display and two massive camera bumps





The past few years have been rough for Huawei. After being hit by heavy sanctions by the US government and subsequently seeing multiple vendors, carriers, and even tech suppliers back out of all contracts with the company, the company’s gone into a global hibernation of sorts. In 2017, it held the mantle of the world’s second-largest smartphone company, dethroning Apple in the process… now, Huawei’s phones, tablets, and laptops aren’t something the world hears much about. The flagship Mate series, however, seems to be the only buzzworthy device in Huawei’s current line-up, and Technizo Concept and LetsGoDigital have pieced together what could be the upcoming Mate 50 Pro smartphone.

The renders present a rather new direction for smartphones in general. The back of the smartphone comes with not one, but two camera bumps (that sit on a third raised surface), while the front is almost entirely just a display. Notably, the display curves onto both the left and right surfaces, forming what is being referred to as an ‘arc display’, and absorbing the area where you’d commonly find the power and volume buttons.

Designer: Technizo Concept for LetsGoDigital

The removal of the buttons gives the Mate 50 Pro its unique character. The screen now cascades towards the left and the right, allowing relevant information to be moved to these two ‘bars’ on the side. In fact, battery information, notifications, and the time now sit on the side – almost like information on the spine of a book – instead of on the top. This allows the front of the phone to be as ‘picturesque’ and clutter-free as possible… a fact reinforced by the presence of a discreet under-display camera instead of the intrusive hole-punch camera.

The buttons exist within this cascading screen too (as displayed in the image at the end of the article) as virtual touch-zones that you can push to wake the screen, control the volume, quick-launch apps, and even use as controls while gaming. According to the patent files analyzed by LetsGoDigital, the screen ‘strips’ on the side are force-sensitive, which means they respond differently based on how hard or soft you press the area. This allows you to build multiple functions into the same touch-zone, allowing you to tap softly to change volume, or harder to skip tracks. The documentation further states that the smartphone will be equipped with an AI chip, a heat dissipation regulation system (a cooling system), a vibration component, and even a stereo speaker.

Flip the phone over and you’re presented with two massive camera bumps. This layout may be familiar to people who remember the humongous camera bumps on the Huawei P50 (which received the ire of the internet back when it debuted in July). At least with the Mate 50 Pro concept, the camera bumps sit against a dark background, merging in instead of standing out like two black holes on the rear of the device.

While a lot of the details shown here are merely visualizations, there are a few things we can say with a respectable deal of certainty. The Mate 50 Pro will almost certainly be 5G ready, and will run on the latest version of the company’s HarmonyOS. There’s no concrete timeline on when Huawei will launch or even ship these phones, given that the entire tech world is dealing with severe chip shortages (something that’s added fuel to the fire with Huawei’s existing sanction problems). Nevertheless, these images definitely do paint a rosy picture of what the Chinese tech-giant is capable of achieving, even with limited resources.

Images via LetsGoDigital

BlackBerry Passport 2 concept images emerge, sporting iconic physical QWERTY keyboard + a dual-lens main camera





It seems like the ‘berry still has some juice left in it! The Passport 2 concept builds on the successful 2014 BlackBerry Passport, and does what BlackBerry does best… provide a uniquely different smartphone experience that’s characterized by that beautiful QWERTY keyboard.

For everyone who thought BlackBerry was done and dusted, 2020’s been a pretty interesting year for the company. Chinese giant TCL no longer holds the rights to manufacture BlackBerry phones, and since August of last year, the Canadian smartphone company has been partnering with American brand OnwardMobility to keep the BlackBerry name alive. While both companies have been pretty mum about what’s in the pipeline, Ts Designer and LetsGoDigital have been cooking up some concepts based on the fragments of news they’ve gathered from press releases and company statements. Meet the Passport 2, a conceptual Android-running BlackBerry phone with a 4.5-inch touchscreen display, a physical keyboard, and a 5G chip on the inside.

I have to admit that seeing a new BlackBerry does give me a bit of nostalgia. I’ve never been a fan of touchscreen keyboards, and that’s a complaint that BlackBerry and I have always had in common; although BlackBerry phones have an archetype, and it’s safe to say that the archetype isn’t really popular anymore. However, there are still probably some people who would prefer a BlackBerry in 2021, and I’d venture a guess that the Passport 2 concept is targeted firmly towards them. LetsGoDigital reports that the Passport 2 is envisioned as BlackBerry’s first 5G-ready phone, with a waterproof exterior and Android OS interior. The overall aesthetic of the phone hasn’t deviated too much from BlackBerry’s signature style, and it looks every bit like the Passport from 2014, although with a slicker design featuring a slimmer upper bezel, gold accents around the sides and the keyboard, and a nifty dual-lens camera on the back… you know, to keep the customer happy!

Sadly though, the Passport 2, as exciting as it may look, is just a fan-made concept for now. OnwardMobility and BlackBerry are definitely working on a 5G Android phone according to reports, and I’ll be pretty happy if it looks even half as good as this!

Designer: Ts Designer for LetsGoDigital

Images via LetsGoDigital

Completely absurd patent by Vivo shows a smartphone with its own built-in tiny drone camera





What will they think of next? A smartphone that can 3D print?? (Okay scratch that, that would actually be pretty awesome)

Just last week (Friday to be specific), LetsGoDigital uncovered this rather outrageous patent filed by Chinese phone manufacturer Vivo at the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) showcasing a phone with its own drone camera. Sort of like how Marvel superhero Falcon had his own flying sidekick ‘Redwing’, Vivo’s phone had its own mini-drone that could pop out on command and click photos at you from any vantage point.

Sliding cameras on smartphones aren’t new, although Vivo’s concept takes it a couple of notches ahead. The patent shows a phone with a massive pop-out tray on the front. Within it, sits a tiny drone (sort of like the Air Selfie Drone from AirPix but smaller) with four propellers and a bunch of cameras and sensors. Fire your camera app and the tray instantly pops out and the drone takes off. A front-facing camera on the drone’s body lets you click photos (either of yourself or of landscapes) from a variety of vantage points, going above and beyond what your smartphone camera and your outstretched hand can do. Given how small drones, it isn’t entirely an idea I can actually dismiss… although what would Vivo’s marketing team call it? A Dronephone? A Smartdrone? A Phdrone?!

Practicality aside, the tech isn’t too far-fetched. The drone fits right into the phone’s slightly thick body, and comes with dual portrait-mode cameras on the top (that directly face you when the tray pops out), a main camera on the front (that works as the drone’s eyes), and IR sensors on the left and right that help the drone detect and avoid objects. The presence of cameras on the drone mean Vivo’s smartphone doesn’t need any cameras at all. This means no front-facing camera and a clean notch-less hole-punch-less display, as well as no massive camera bump on the back. The smartphone is a complete monolith of glass, metal, and screen, punctuated by a charging port and a set of buttons. The drone tray sits flush against the phone when closed, and pops up only when you fire up the camera app. (I’m assuming the app has drone controllers built in too)

Now let’s argue practicality from both sides of the argument. There’s a fair amount of evidence to say that this is a terrible idea. Moving components on a smartphone are historically the first to fail – Dust gets stuck in it, components wear out, parts accidentally break. The presence of a drone would mean saying goodbye to water-resistance, and there’s also a high chance your drone can get lost or stolen, leaving you with absolutely no camera (that’s if Vivo implements something exactly like this). Not to mention the fact that it practically means the end of privacy as we know it. (Imagine hundreds and thousands of drones flying around in every public space, or worse, or a drone entering a private space).

That being said, drone photography is truly the final frontier in consumer photography. The smartphone camera is already comparable to a DSLR, so now imagine being able to point that camera from any vantage point. You could take distant selfies without selfie sticks, sunsets from inside your house, and get better photos at concerts. It’s safe to assume that the drone would have a rather small battery (given its size), but one could easily make the argument that the drone could also wirelessly charge while docked inside the phone). As far as safety and privacy go, companies could build safeguards and throttles into the drone, preventing it from flying too far from its smartphone. There’s a lot to discuss and unpack here, although at the end of the day, fair reminder – this is just a patent and it’s likely that we won’t see anything like this for at least a couple of years. It’s fun to dream though…

Designer/Visualizer: Sarang Sheth for LetsGoDigital

This concept was first published on LetsGoDigital. Click here to view the original piece.

Radical Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Tab patent shows a two-part folding screen + magnetic S-Pen docking area

It’s slowly becoming pretty clear that Samsung wants to be the dominant player in the foldables market. We’ve seen Motorola, Xiaomi, Huawei, Royole, and even the oddball TCL try their hands at folding devices, but none of them have invested the amount of time and effort as Samsung has. Based on a patent filing uncovered by LetsoGoDigital and rendered by Sarang Sheth, here’s a look at the Galaxy Z Fold Tab, a Note-style smartphone with 2 hinges and a nifty ‘crawl-space’ to dock and charge your S-Pen. The Z Fold Tab hopes to form a third device in Samsung’s line-up alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Galaxy Z Flip 3, which are set to launch this year – in effect consolidating Samsung’s position in a questionable yet rather interesting foldable-devices market.

The Z Fold Tab concept takes on the avatar of a folding device with an outward screen. However, unlike the Huawei Mate X or any of Royole’s Flexpai devices, the Z Fold Tab comes with two hinges on its massive screen, creating a novel folding format that has a rather interesting set of pros as well as cons. In its closed mode, the Z Fold Tab can obviously be used as a regular smartphone (albeit being slightly thicker) with a waterfall display on both left and right edges thanks to the folding screens (this obscures the volume and power buttons, but those could easily be translated to the screen via force-touch like in the Vivo Apex 2019). However, unfold the screens on either side and you have yourself a larger tablet. The obvious cons are that instead of one crease running across the screen, you’re now faced with TWO creases, however, given how we consume content and the amount of time we spend looking at centrally aligned elements, this format oddly works, because the two creases sit on the sides of the screen rather than along the center.

The foldable design comes with a unique detail. The two halves leave a distinct gap when folded completely, solving two purposes – the gap exposes the main camera lenses, enabling you to take photos and videos without worrying about unfolding your phone; and the gap even acts as a safe space to magnetically dock your S-Pen. Unlike previous Note devices that came with hollow slots that allowed you to slide an S-Pen into the phone, the Z Fold Tab lets the S-Pen dock outside, almost like the iPad Pro. The magnetic dock charges the S-Pen while that comfy gap prevents the pen from accidentally sliding out or getting lost.

The Galaxy Z Fold Tab is not unlike the Z Fold 3 concept we featured last year, however, its key difference is that the two-part hinges don’t overlap to form a 3-layered device. Even when folded, the Z Fold Tablet still remains relatively slim by foldable standards.

For now, however, the Z Fold Tab exists only in conceptual form, protected by an international patent filed by Samsung. The Korean consumer-tech giant is slated to host its annual Galaxy Unpacked event in August this year, although according to analysts and experts, we’re probably only going to see the Z Fold 3 and the Z Flip 3 devices this year along with the usual suspects. According to LetsGoDigital, Samsung may have this under wraps until 2022.

Designer/Visualizer: Sarang Sheth for LetsGoDigital

This concept was first published on LetsGoDigital. Click here to view the original piece.

Xiaomi tries building what Google and Motorola couldn’t – the modular smartphone

The modular smartphone still remains an elusive pipe dream, nearly a decade after the Phonebloks surfaced on the internet. Google tried it, Motorola managed to execute a strange version of it with the Moto Mods, and every company that considered it eventually abandoned it because it was a logistical nightmare with very little net positive benefit. It’s safe to say Xiaomi isn’t ‘every company’. The Chinese giant’s company’s name loosely translates to ‘little grain’, and it talks about a philosophy of building a lot from a little. This means they’re not averse to taking risks, and they’ve definitely surprised before, with their phones like the Mi MIX 2 that was designed by Philippe Starck, the Mi TV LUX, a transparent television, and even their latest bit of innovation in the Mi MIX Fold, with its liquid camera lens. According to LetsGoDigital, it seems like the company is also trying its hand out at designing the modular smartphone by splitting the device into four distinct parts – the screen, the camera, the battery+pcb, and the speakers.

LetsGoDigital uncovered the patent on the 26th of April, and partnered with Jermaine Smit (aka Concept Creator) to bring the patent drawings to life. The phone’s components attach to one another using sliding dovetail joinery, with contact points that allow for communication between modules. Finally, a primary screen snaps on the front, hiding the crease-lines and providing a large, bezel-less display. The three modules play a rather interesting role when combined together. The upper module houses the camera, but also contains the phone’s motherboard. The central module houses the battery, while the third contains the speaker along with the phone’s charging port. Conceptually, the modules would be interchangeable, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you had to switch the phone off prior to swapping parts.

Jermaine Smit’s camera modules give this conceptual Xiaomi smartphone a variety of features, including camera modules with different capabilities. The different modules have anywhere from a 3-4 lens setup, with one of the higher-end ones even coming with its own backward-facing display that’s emblematic of the Mi 11 Ultra that released earlier this year. Unlike the Ultra, which had a tiny display, this concept’s display is a respectable 2-inches diagonally. I’d assume it would be big enough to use as a viewfinder for selfies (given that the phone doesn’t have a front-facing camera) and even for notifications.

Although this concept, and Xiaomi’s patent, unlocks some pretty interesting possibilities, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Not many of these patents really make it to a public reveal or to a retail outlet, but instead, aim at protecting a company’s intellectual property and research. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if Xiaomi just announced it as a one-off concept to show that their tech isn’t just a dream, it works in reality too. Until then, all we have are these (pretty intriguing) renders!

Designer: Jermaine Smit for LetsGoDigital

Image Credits: LetsGoDigital

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 concept has a bezel-less folding screen and the S21’s camera module

Why is it called the Z Flip 3? Where’s the Z Flip 2? Irrelevant questions!

Not sure if it’s the design of the phone or the render quality, but 3D artist Giuseppe Spinelli really seems to have outdone himself with this concept phone. Spinelli’s rendition of the Galaxy Z Flip 3 sports the best parts of all of Samsung’s past phones. On the inside, it has even thinner bezels than its 2020 counterpart, a hole-punch camera for good measure, and that gorgeous vertical folding screen. Flip the phone over and it’s reminiscent of the Moto Razr, with a pretty neat secondary display, and a camera module with three lenses (a first for vertical folding phones).

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 comes as a collaboration between Spinelli (also known by his internet alias Snoreyn) and LetsGoDigital. Rumor is, it’ll be accompanied by the Z Fold 3 as well, allowing Samsung to finally become a veteran in the folding phone space. LGD reports that the Z Flip 3 will feature an improved hinge and even points out that Samsung was awarded a patent for a Z Flip with triple cameras back in 2020.

The phone’s clamshell folding design makes it incredibly compact when folded, allowing it to occupy much less space in your pocket as compared to a Z Fold-style book-shaped folding design. Samsung’s also rumored to be working on a pamphlet-style smartphone with a triple-panel double-hinge setup, but there’s really no word of when the company will officially announce it.

The thickness can often be a deterring factor for consumers. Aside from the visible crease seen in most folding smartphone screens, the thickness becomes a bone of contention between manufacturers and consumers. However, Samsung recently even registered a trademark for the term ‘Armor Frame’, implying a slimmer yet more durable outer body. This would effectively make newer devices slimmer than their older counterparts, hopefully ‘slimming’ the gap between regular smartphones and foldables.

Some of the most interesting features of the Z Flip 3 include its small secondary screen, which actually works as more than just a notification center. Just like the Galaxy Z Fold 2, the larger secondary screen is touch-sensitive, and can be used when the phone is shut. You could potentially watch videos, navigate music apps, browse through notifications, and even use the screen as a viewfinder while clicking images with that stellar 3-camera setup. Another thing that makes the Z Flip 3 interesting is its format, which allows you to use it in an L-shaped mini-laptop mode. The vertically elongated screen may be great for browsing content or scrolling, but when split in half, provides ample real estate for media on the top, and a keyboard at the bottom. It would make sense for the Z Flip 3 to continue exploiting this feature. Moreover, the Z Flip 3 could even feature virtual buttons, as suggested by Spinelli and LGD. This essentially boosts functionality and makes it easier to control volume without constantly having to reach the upper left corner of the phone. Samsung is slated to debut the Z Flip 3 at its Galaxy Unpacked event in the summer of 2021, with as many as 8 different colors to choose from.

Designer: Giuseppe Spinelli for LetsGoDigital

BlackBerry is still alive… And its latest smartphone will have 5G and even a physical keyboard





It seems like BlackBerry still has some fight left in it! After being unceremoniously dumped by TCL following a failed 4-year license agreement, BlackBerry partnered with OnwardMobility, a mobile security company, to work on its upcoming line of smartphones. In August last year, OnwardMobility issued a press release highlighting that they would be launching a “5G BlackBerry Android smartphone with a physical keyboard in North America and Europe.” The company even stated that they would be partnering with Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile Limited to design and manufacture these smartphones. As we gradually approach the launch of these phones, Jermaine Smit (better known as his internet alias Concept Creator) has partnered with LetsGoDigital to envision what these phones will probably look like… and let’s just say, they’re about as long as a meatball sub.

Ask any Max-sized iPhone users what an annoyance it is to reach the back button on the top-left corner of a screen and you’ll probably figure out that smartphones are already pretty big to begin with. The Blackberry Key 3 concept adds a further 1.5 inches to the smartphone’s height with a dedicated, physical, touch-sensitive keyboard. Now I don’t mean to dunk on the Key 3, the physical keyboard has always been BlackBerry’s schtick… but maybe a slide-out keyboard would work better for a smartphone in today’s world. That aside, the Key 3 looks rather impressive.

The BlackBerry Key 3 concept comes with a profile that’s reminiscent of the Note 20 Ultra. It features a flat surface on the top and bottom, while cascading edges on the sides result in a phone that’s comfortable to hold, along with a waterfall display, there may be a chance of the phone registering accidental palm touches. The camera setup on the back features 3 lenses and a flash, looking quite similar to the one found on the OnePlus 8, and sitting right beneath that is the familiar BlackBerry logo. Flip the phone back over to the front and it kind of looks slightly meme-ish. It’s obscenely long, considering the screen’s already 20:9 to begin with. Adding to that is a slight forehead bezel (which features a single front-facing camera) and a massive chin, which houses a full QWERTY keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard, from what I can tell, is a part of the display, but it’s always there… even when you don’t need it. Sort of like the soft keys often found on Android phones, the keyboard is static in its position, and can easily be used when you need to type. This ideally means a keyboard never blocks or overlaps elements on the screen, so you’re always treated to a full-screen interface all the time. I’m not entirely sure if the keyboard’s layout is dynamic, i.e., whether it changes to reveal emojis or other languages, but if I were a betting man, that would honestly be a pretty remarkable feature. I could even imagine having app-specific controls, like playback controls for YouTube and Netflix, or gaming controls while you play games (reminds me of the LG Wing if I’m being honest). There are a few undeniable perks to owning a BlackBerry phone, and I’d say the Key 3’s no different. Aside from the keyboard, BlackBerry phones are known to have a much higher security standard than your regular Android or iOS device. If you can somehow look past the length of this phone, the Key 3 could actually be a compelling device to a certain subset of people. Besides, look to the base and you’ll even notice a 3.5mm headphone jack!!

Designer: Concept Creator (Jermain Smit) for LetsGoDigital

A closer look at the camera module, which looks heavily borrowed from the OnePlus 8. There’s no reason to believe that the original BlackBerry phone will sport the same camera module, so we can write this one off as Concept Creator’s own personal touch. That being said, if the BlackBerry did have a camera that was as good as the OnePlus 8, it would still be leaps and bounds ahead of what they’ve currently got.

From the looks of it, the phone sports a brushed metal back, which would probably mean no wireless charging. There is, however, a Type-C port on the base… and I may be sounding like a broken record here, but I’m still pretty impressed by the fact that flagship phones in 2021 can still have 3.5mm jacks!

There’s no indication of what this concept’s dimensions are, although it’s worth remembering that the BlackBerry Key 3 is just a fan-made concept phone. OnwardMobility announced that BlackBerry would launch its 2021 smartphone sometime in the first half of the year, so if things are still going according to schedule, the phone should ideally be announced in the next 2 months or so!

Image Credits – LetsGoDigital