This new smartphone has brought back a physical keyboard for everyone who's tired of touch screens and prefers buttons

A physical keyboard on a smartphone largely disappeared when manufacturers embraced giant touchscreens, but one company clearly isn’t ready to let them go.

The compact Android smartphone that puts a full QWERTY keyboard underneath its display.

It looks like something that could have come straight out of the BlackBerry era, but it packs plenty of modern smartphone hardware underneath the retro-inspired design.

And unlike many nostalgia-focused gadgets, this one is designed to be a proper everyday smartphone.

The keyboard is the star of the show

The Titan 2 Elite’s biggest party trick is obviously the physical keyboard, but Unihertz has given it a few tricks that make it more than a gadget with a row of buttons.

The classic QWERTY layout provides a familiar typing experience, with each key offering tactile feedback, and the keyboard is backlit, making it easier to use in darker environments.

Even better, the keys are touch-sensitive, so the keyboard can work almost like a tiny trackpad.

Users can swipe across it to scroll through webpages, move the cursor around text and interact with content without constantly reaching up to the touchscreen.

Unihertz also allows the A-Z keys to be programmed with short-press and long-press shortcuts.

That means the keyboard can serve as a control panel for frequently used apps and functions, rather than just for typing.

The idea will be especially familiar to anyone who remembers using a BlackBerry, although reviewers have noted that the Titan 2 Elite is more than a straight copy of those old phones.

The smartphone still has a surprisingly modern spec sheet

The keyboard might be the headline feature, but the rest of the phone isn’t stuck in the past.

The Titan 2 Elite has a 4.03-inch AMOLED display with a 1080 x 1200 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate.

That’s a tiny screen compared with the enormous displays found on most modern flagships, but the high refresh rate should make scrolling and animations feel smooth.

Inside is a MediaTek Dimensity 7400 processor paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and there’s also a microSD card slot, allowing users to add up to 2TB of additional storage.

The phone runs Android 16, and Unihertz says it will receive five years of software support, including operating system upgrades through Android 20.

There’s also a battery with 33W charging, alongside 5G connectivity, NFC, an IR blaster, fingerprint recognition and eSIM support.

For photography, the rear setup consists of a 50MP main camera and a 50MP telephoto camera, while a 32MP camera handles selfies and video calls.

There’s even a red programmable button on the side that can be assigned to launch an AI assistant, camera, flashlight or another app.

How much is the Unihertz Titan 2 Elite?

This isn’t a cheap phone simply because it has an old-school physical keyboard.

Unihertz currently lists the Titan 2 Elite at $489.99, while the more powerful Titan 2 Elite Pro costs more and swaps in a Dimensity 8400 processor with 512GB of storage.

The Titan 2 Elite is also unusually compact, measuring 117.8 x 75 x 10.4mm and weighing 163g.

That makes it much smaller than most modern smartphones, although the physical keyboard inevitably takes up some of the space that would normally be occupied by the display.

That’s both the appeal and the compromise.

It’s also worth remembering that the Titan 2 Elite isn’t trying to replace every smartphone for every person.

It’s aimed at people who actually want physical keys – whether that’s because they miss their old BlackBerry, prefer tactile typing or simply don’t enjoy doing everything on a sheet of glass.

But it might not be good for someone who wants to do gaming or editing on it.

And after years of smartphones getting bigger, thinner and increasingly dominated by touchscreens, there’s something quite refreshing about a phone that simply gives you some buttons again – throwback!