New Blackberry Handset With Rotating Numeric/QWERTY Keyboards

A new patent from Research in Motion has made its way to the public domain that shows the company’s development work on a new Blackberry phone that comes with a separate  numeric keypad and a QWERTY keyboard. The form factor of this device is difficult to explain. The engineers who have filed the patent explain that this model of the phone is to offer an easy way to use the keyboard and keypad in both the landscape and portrait formats. They write,

“In a first aspect, a handheld electronic device, such as a smartphone, has a first device member and a second device member that are connected via a connector. The second device member is rotatable about a rotation axis that is canted relative to an axis of the second device member. As a result, when the second device member is rotated between a first position and a second position, its orientation changes. This may facilitate, for example, switching the handheld electronic device between a text entry mode and a telephone mode. “

Here are a few images from the patent application that could give you an idea of what the device will actually look like.

This does not effectively mean a new Blackberry phone with such a form factor is coming soon since the patent application was filed early last year.