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Back in the 2000s — before the iPhone — the BlackBerry was a productivity powerhouse that constantly demanded your attention, whether it was hacking into your email inbox or sending messages to contacts via BlackBerry’s BBM texting service. Now in 2026, Unihertz $490 Titan 2 Elite It feels like a modern-day BlackBerry, and its smaller screen puts me off Death scroll.
I’ve spent weeks beta testing the Titan 2 Elite with early software. I like its great design which gives a ‘small phone’ feel. Its 4-inch square screen looks like it holds a TV with a 4:3 aspect ratio. The relatively compact screen is great for doing all the things I used to do with a BlackBerry, like reading websites, checking email, and using the physical keyboard to type my way through it all.
But watching video — especially vertical video — is frustrating. Since most apps and websites are now built with rectangular phone screens in mind, it’s become a bit of a hassle when a square phone screen doesn’t work well for displaying content.
While there are quirks that Unihertz tries to solve through software updates, the Titan 2 Elite evokes a sense of keyboard nostalgia while still running modern Android apps. But there are a few things worth noting for anyone comparing the Titan 2 Elite to other keyboard phones we’ve been waiting for, like the upcoming $500 He clicks on the communicator.
The keyboard has ridges along its keys, making it easier to search for letters.
How does the keyboard feel?
The Titan 2 Elite’s keyboard — the real star of a phone like this — is very good, but not quite perfect. All the keys are a nice size, making it easy to tap messages without worrying about juggling multiple keys at once. In fairness, pinpointing the exact keyboard style that BlackBerry perfected in the 2000s is no easy feat. The Titan 2 Elite’s keys have a bump that helps you feel letters, and tapping the alt key gives you access to numbers and symbols.
One thing I had to remember from my BlackBerry days was the adjustment period to the specific layout of the physical keyboard and the placement of icons. For example, I wish the punctuation symbols were larger on the keyboard. As muscle memory eventually starts to pick up letters, I usually need to look for symbols like @ in email addresses (located on the far right, on the P key).
If you use the asterisk frequently, its location just above the alt key creates a slight traffic jam. This made me type slower on the physical keyboard than I do on the touchscreen. But it feels more accurate and doesn’t constantly try to autocorrect like my iPhone does.
The Unihertz Titan 2 Elite comes in black, but the phone is also available in orange.
Like some newer BlackBerry phones, the keyboard supports touch gestures, such as turning into a scrollable trackpad when browsing a website, and you can set up shortcuts, too. While typing, you can also double-tap the keyboard and then swipe to move the cursor — which is useful when I’m working through my Notes app.
Unihertz continues to tweak the phone’s keyboard as it approaches its release later this year. During my time with the phone, a software update resolved an issue where I had to double-tap the key to start typing in a text field. Hopefully these and other issues will be improved over time.
The Titan 2 Elite runs Android 16, with a simple overlay that runs close to the Android platform – I enjoy pulling out the app drawer and then using the keyboard to quickly find the app I need. Unihertz plans to provide five years of software and security updates for the Titan 2 Elite. That’s impressive compared to some phone makers, like Motorola, which typically offer only two years of software updates and three years of security updates for their sub-$500 phones.
Apps like Instagram that play vertical video may appear strange on the Titan 2 Elite’s square-shaped screen.
The screen looks like a small TV
The Titan 2 Elite has a 1080p display with a 120Hz refresh rate, but the square aspect ratio introduces some oddities. For example, this is great for reading websites, especially while scrolling using the swipe gesture on the keyboard, but watching videos is a challenge. The software crops the image awkwardly to make the vertical video fit. This is probably a feature that makes the phone less vulnerable to this Mindless TikTok watching.
Most apps default to portrait orientation when you hold the phone with the keyboard below the screen. This makes sense since most phones are typically taller vertically. When I use an app like YouTube, I prefer to view the video full screen. Instead, by default, creating a full video screen puts it in “landscape” mode, forcing me to hold the device sideways — resulting in me gripping the now-vertical keyboard like the strings of a guitar.
By default, the Titan 2 Elite often plays full-screen video like this, although the screen ratio is similar when held horizontally or vertically.
Apps like Instagram are always vertical, where the video plays with the top and bottom of the frame cropped, which is a similar issue I face when using Instagram on the cover screen of foldable style phones like Motorola Razr.
The square shape of the screen looks the same in both directions, which makes all of this seem unnecessary. There are accessibility settings that control this rotation, but I would like to resolve these issues further. Perhaps using a proactive button in the overlay or using the quick settings menu.
The phone has two 50-megapixel wide and telephoto cameras.
Nice camera, but you want to know its settings
For a sub-$500 phone, the Titan 2 Elite’s cameras are decent, but they shouldn’t be the main reason you choose this phone. They are not up to par Google $499 Pixel 10Abut I like the details and colors captured by the 50MP wide-angle and 50MP telephoto cameras. Images are captured in 4:3 ratio by default, but you can set this to the traditional 2:3 orientation.
I took the photo below on a sunny morning in Queens using my phone’s wide-angle camera. For such a small camera, the photo has a lot of detail – notice the street and the people eating in the café. Dynamic range is limited, and shadows tend to be black.
Captured with the Unihertz Titan 2 Elite wide camera.
And here’s the same spot captured using the 2x optical zoom on the telephoto lens. The close-up has better exposure, but detail is softer – note the 33 St mark and the texture of the tree leaves.
Captured with the Unihertz Titan 2 Elite telephoto camera.
Typically, I don’t see standalone telephoto cameras built into phones under $650. So getting one on the Titan 2 Elite is a treat.
Images look more grainy indoors. While attending a Sweet Suite toy event in New York, I took the photo below of the Megazord Power Rangers toy display. In this image, the text on the packaging looks soft despite it being a static subject, likely due to the dim indoor lighting and the small camera sensor inside the phone.
Captured with the wide camera.
I’ve noticed that the problem extends to selfies. This photo was taken outside on a rooftop. The photo has a lot of detail in my face, likely due to how bright the sun was at sunset.
Taken with the Unihertz Titan 2 Elite selfie camera.
But the selfie I took inside the CNET office, with artificial lighting overhead, was noticeably blurrier in comparison.
Taken on a selfie camera while you’re indoors.
This performance is typical among budget phones, especially among the $300-$400 phones I tested. Since the keyboard is the real reason you’ll likely buy this device, and it’s not priced like high-end camera phones, I’m more inclined to look past the camera’s shortcomings.
The Clicks Communicator (left) will arrive later this year with its own take on a BlackBerry-inspired device. The company that makes it also makes keyboards for phones like the Motorola Razr (right).
The Titan 2 Elite will soon face more competition
It’s a good year for anyone longing for a nostalgic BlackBerry-like device. The model I tested has 256GB of storage and a MediaTek Dimensity 7400 processor. There’s a $580 Pro model that has 512GB of storage and a more powerful Dimensity 8400 processor. Both are currently available for Pre-order on the Unihertz website.
The Unihertz Titan 2 Elite, which starts shipping in September, could arrive sooner than the next $500 He clicks on the communicatorbut both devices offer an alternative to the Android phone that brings back the tappable keyboard. The Unihertz embraces a 2000s BlackBerry look, while the Communicator is a modern take on a RIM device, designed by a former BlackBerry designer.
Communicator is from a company that makes keyboard cases for iPhone and Android phones. It’s not a replica of an old BlackBerry, but it’s inspired by the Clicks keyboard case for the Motorola Razr when closed, and was designed by a former BlackBerry designer. It runs Android 16 with Niagara Launcher (pictured on the Razr). The Communicator has a MediaTek Dimensity 8300 (MT8883) processor and 256GB of storage that is expandable using a microSD card up to 2TB. The Clicks phone also has other modern touches like a notification LED around a dedicated prompt key, a headphone jack, interchangeable back panels, and support for Qi2 wireless charging.
While we’ll have to wait until later this year to compare the two phones, I’m glad to see that both Unihertz and Clicks plan to provide longer software support for these two phones than you’d normally get at this price. It shows a commitment to making keyboard phones work well, especially since many apps and services are now optimized for the rectangular panel phones that have dominated the market since BlackBerry left the phone industry. If the phones find their audience, there will hopefully be time to iron out any other kinks so BlackBerry fans can write away.
