You Can Now Type On A BlackBerry Keyboard With Your Everyday Phone… Or Computer

It’s now been several years of people hitting the phantom keypads—we call them touch screens—of their BlackBerry phones. Needless to say, the tactile experience is dearly missed in this buttonless era, its absence likely exacerbated by the rise of mechanical keyboards.

If that physical feedback is something you crave, you might be pleased to know that you can rekindle the classic BlackBerry experience with your iPhone or Android, or even your PC. With many unused BlackBerry parts still lying around in warehouses, Swedish open-source electronics group Solder Party has obtained and retooled the keypad of the fan-favorite BlackBerry Q20 with a Raspberry Pi RP2040, allowing it to process and translate key interactions with connected everyday devices.

While this backlit BB Q20 Keyboard with Trackpad is designed for hardware DIY enthusiasts, it also comes with a USB-C port and native USB human interface device (HID) compatibility to serve as a tactile, secondary QWERTY keyboard for Windows, Mac, Linux, and even Apple or Android smartphones, Gizmodo points out.

Notably, this handset-sized keyboard doesn’t have all the alphanumeric keys found on your laptop, but the modders have added a few shortcuts to enable more input. Holding down the right-shift and ‘Alt’ keys, for instance, triggers the caps-lock function, while the ‘~’ symbol is hidden in the microphone button.

Typing isn’t the only function of the mini-keyboard, though. Its touchpad also acts like a computer mouse with left and right clicking.

The entire keyboard is protected in injection-molded clear plastic to keep dust and other unwanted particles out. For US$30, you can once again compose emails the old-fashioned way—with a passive-aggression made audible to other passengers on the commute.

[via Gizmodo and Liliputing, images via Solder Party / Tindie]