BlackBerry Passport with square screen and keyboard turns into Android smartphone thanks to upgrade kit

Zinwa already launched a new edition of the BlackBerry Q20 Classic with the Q25 Pro and is currently developing an entirely new BlackBerry-esque smartphone called the Q27. Now, the manufacturer is also launching a DIY upgrade kit for the BlackBerry Passport. While details on pricing and availability are still pending, the company has already confirmed that the specs are almost identical to the Zinwa Q25 Pro.

The upgrade kit replaces the mainboard, which swaps the BlackBerry Passport's Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 for a more modern MediaTek Helio G99. This chipset has two ARM Cortex-A76 performance cores with a boost clock speed of up to 2.2GHz, six Cortex-A55 efficiency cores and an integrated 4G modem. Zinwa is pairing the chip with 12GB RAM and 256GB UFS 2.1 storage. The upgrade kit also adds an NFC chip and a USB-C port for charging.

The cameras also get an upgrade thanks to an 8MP selfie camera and a 50MP main camera. The upgrade kit will ship with Android 14, but Zinwa has not yet confirmed whether updates to newer Android versions are planned. The remaining hardware, including the square 4.5-inch touchscreen with 1440 x 1440 pixels, the 3,450mAh battery and the QWERTY keyboard will be carried over from the original BlackBerry Passport. The BlackBerry Passport originally launched back in September 2014 for an MSRP of $599.