The return of the qwerty keyboard?

Images have surfaced on Chinese social media website Weibo that claim to show an upcoming Motorola handset that includes a slide out qwerty keyboard.

As manufacturers continue to favour touchscreen keypads over physical buttons, and in light of the struggles facing Blackberry, there just might be a gap in the market for a company that caters to the desire for a physical qwerty keyboard.

The handset, manufactured for Verizon by Motorola, is rumoured to go by the name of the Droid 5 and to will be a significant step up from the Droid 4. While offering the same five row keyboard as its predecessor the buzz is that the device will be water and dust resistant, capable of wireless charging and thinner than previous designs. The handset seen in the released images may well be out of date though, as the device is shown running Android 4.0.3.

While physical qwerty keyboards are expensive for manufacturers to produce and cumbersome to find a space for on modern smartphones where screen size is key, if Verizon has read the market right, the Droid 5 has the potential to be a hit, and to provide a new lease of life for the qwerty keyboard.

Source: The Verge