[Troy Tiscareno]

I do strongly believe that if Blackberry comes up with a bold form factor (or Q10 like) with an updated and powerful enough software, it can gain back the love of all the people that loved that era of perfect balance size-efficiency the bold was all about.

Relatively few people liked those phones because of their small size - they liked them because, at the time, they could do a lot of things that couldn't be done otherwise. But things have changed, and what people expect their phone to be able to do has massively changed as well. The amount of people who would give all that up to go back to a tiny device is... well, tiny. There's just no market. It's why small phones have disappeared - people just didn't buy them once other options became available.

And BB isn't ever making another smartphone in any format. It's even quite questionable whether their one remaining licensee will do so.

[Troy Tiscareno]

I have an old Motorola Flipout. They seemed to be able to put Android on a small screen back in 2010. I'm sure those capabilities have not disappeared.

That's the phone that led to Google specifying a portrait screen layout - lots of apps didn't have a landscape mode, or only had a poor landscape mode. Note that you haven't seen a single landscape-oriented screen on an Android phone since then.

It was never a problem for the OS itself - it's all about app compatibility, which is why Google put the standards in place. People get very upset if apps don't work properly.

[mbirth]

Speaking of small Android phones:

[anon(10512033)]

With split screen, I would think that most apps are required to be resizable to something in the neighbourhood of 1:1 ... and to work properly in a 'window' close to the screen size of a small device.

[anon(10512033)]

There was a slider version of the Xperia X10 Mini. I really wanted one but could never find one with the North American 3G bands.

[Nguyen1]

Well, the Jio2 phone has a portrait QWERTY keyboard. And HMD is developing a non-touchscreen feature phone with android on a small screen (see the Phonearena article; these are real devices). Combine these two ideas together, and you get a Curve with Android, so pretty close.

Or, if we're dreaming of unicorns, perhaps the new unlocked Palm Phone will be so wildly popular that Palm will develop a bluetooth slideable keyboard Mod to snap onto the back, and voila, you have a Pre4 with Android.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Well, the Jio2 phone has a portrait QWERTY keyboard. And HMD is developing a non-touchscreen feature phone with android on a small screen (see the Phonearena article; these are real devices). Combine these two ideas together, and you get a Curve with Android, so pretty close.

Or, if we're dreaming of unicorns, perhaps the new unlocked Palm Phone will be so wildly popular that Palm will develop a bluetooth slideable keyboard Mod to snap onto the back, and voila, you have a Pre4 with Android.

Jio Phone 2 runs KaiOS.... Feature Phones are still a huge market, 100's of millions of feature phones sold every year.

Maybe at some point an OEM will once again consider an early PKB smartphone design once again. Many of these new feature phones do what BBOS could do, their only limit is the hardware and limited apps.

[Calvincton Bailey]

Bold had a touch screen as well.

BlackBerry hasn't made phones at all for a couple of years already. All recent BB-branded phones have been manufactured by other companies under license, and those companies have been struggling (2 of the 3 are defunct, and the biggest, TCL, has nearly sold through its entire stock of last year's models and if a new model comes at all, it won't be until next year, which means 6 months with no products on the market at all.

And TCL is only interested in selling phones if they can be profitable - which means relatively popular.

The Bold is far too small for an operating system that is primarily touch-based, and there are no modern mobile smartphone OSs that aren't touch-based, and no interest in making any by manufacturers.

The Bold was from a different era, and the world has moved on. The Key series phones are as close as you are likely to ever get, and they are almost gone and it's very questionable if there will ever be another. So if the Key series doesn't do it for you, then a slab is in your future.

[joeldf]

Bold had a touch screen as well.

Only the last one did, and it was based on a different OS. Basically the same as the Torch, and having had one of those, it was kind of painful to use as a touchscreen device.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Only the last one did, and it was based on a different OS. Basically the same as the Torch, and having had one of those, it was kind of painful to use as a touchscreen device.

That was my biggest complaint in 20017 when my company switched from Palm to BlackBerry. Why doesn't this think have a touchscreen?

Their first touchscreen phones, the STORM... required some creative hardware.

[BergerKing]

That was my biggest complaint in 20017 when my company switched from Palm to BlackBerry. Why doesn't this think have a touchscreen?

Their first touchscreen phones, the STORM... required some creative hardware.

That's some serious time travel, Dunt. Um, do me a favor, use your time machine and let me know what tomorrow's Mega Millions numbers are and I'll send you a nice Thank You gift.