Zinwa Technologies is now taking pre-orders for the Zinwa Q27, an Android smartphone with a physical keyboard, through its official store. Unlike the BlackBerry conversion kits the company has built until now, the Q27 is an entirely new design, from the chassis to the keyboard itself. Pricing starts at 420 USD (about 66,000 yen) for the 256GB model.

※1 USD = 157 JPY (as of August 1, 2026)

Not a conversion kit, but a device built from scratch

Most people who know Zinwa Technologies know it through the Q25. That product was a conversion kit that dropped a new board into a BlackBerry Classic shell, bringing a device sitting in a drawer back to life as a modern Android phone. It was a sharply targeted approach that only worked if you could source a donor handset.

The Q27 breaks from that model. On its official product page, Zinwa describes the Q27 as a fully new device built from the ground up, explicitly separating it from the conversion kit line. The company also adds a warning: the Q27 motherboard cannot be installed inside a BlackBerry Classic shell or any other original BlackBerry housing. This is not a way to reuse an old handset, but a self-contained phone.

The keyboard is new as well. Rather than reusing BlackBerry parts, Zinwa designed its own QWERTY unit. The company says it will consider other layouts if demand is high enough, and has set up a way for buyers to register their interest on its official Discord server.

A 4-inch AMOLED stacked above the keyboard

The display is a roughly 4-inch AMOLED touchscreen running at 1080 x 1240 pixels. The near-square aspect ratio exists because the lower half of the front is taken up by the physical keyboard, a shape that will feel familiar to anyone who used a BlackBerry Bold or Classic.

The body measures 74 x 140 x 11mm and weighs 192g. At 11mm, it is clearly thick by current smartphone standards, but that is unavoidable once you commit to keys with real travel. Black and white finishes are offered.

The fingerprint sensor is integrated into the power button. With the lower portion of the front occupied by the keyboard, there is no room for a front-mounted sensor, so the placement makes sense. There is no headphone jack. The notification LED, on the other hand, survives, which will please the audience this phone is aimed at.

Mid-range internals, Android 16 with full Google services

The processor is a MediaTek 7300 paired with 12GB of RAM. Storage comes in 256GB and 512GB configurations, and a TF/SD card slot is available for expansion. Card slots have grown rare on smartphones, so keeping one here reads as a deliberate choice.

Connectivity covers all-band 5G, with two physical SIM slots plus one eSIM. The cameras are 50MP at the rear and 16MP at the front, in line with the price. The 4,000mAh built-in battery supports 33W PD fast charging over USB Type-C 2.0 and 15W Qi wireless charging. Fitting wireless charging into a device of this shape is a mild surprise.

The Q27 also includes a hi-fi speaker, an X-axis linear motor and NFC. Software is Android 16 with full Google Mobile Services, so Google Play and the rest of the Google stack work out of the box. Niche handsets often ship without GMS because of certification hurdles, and clearing that bar matters in daily use.

From 420 USD, with no ship date yet

The 256GB model is 420 USD (about 66,000 yen) and the 512GB model is 480 USD (about 75,000 yen), both with free shipping. These are early bird prices. Every unit ships with a screen protector pre-installed, and early bird orders also include a protective cover.

The caveat is timing. Zinwa has not given an exact ship date and says it is collecting pre-orders and will produce units to match the number of orders received. In other words, how long the wait will be is not knowable right now. The company says it will keep buyers updated as production is scheduled.

The Zinwa store also lists the Q25 Pro Kit at 320 USD, the assembled Q25 Full Device at 420 USD and the P26 Kit at 350 USD. The Q27 slots in at or slightly above those prices as a complete, standalone product.

Summary

The Zinwa Q27 is a physical QWERTY handset built without borrowing a BlackBerry chassis. A roughly 4-inch AMOLED, a MediaTek 7300 with 12GB of RAM, all-band 5G, a 4,000mAh battery with wireless charging and Android 16 with GMS add up to a realistic package for a keyboard phone. Starting at 420 USD, the price is within reach, but the undefined ship date is worth weighing before placing an order.