There are plenty of phones that look toward the future at MWC 2026, but only a few take inspiration from the past. 

The Unihertz Titan 2 Elite is a pocket-sized handset with a physical keyboard that brings back BlackBerry nostalgia and introduces a ton of new tricks to boot. It's the latest in a series of phones from Unihertz, following its BlackBerry Passport-like Titan series.

Though the shift to glass touchscreens heralded by the original iPhone has enabled far greater visibility and functionality in mobile experience, a subset of tech fans longs for the bygone days of physical keyboards and buttons, iconicized by BlackBerry's classic devices. 

Modern accessory company Clicks filled that retro niche with physical keyboard cases, even debuting its own version of a BlackBerry. It's launching the Clicks Communicator, which the Titan 2 Elite could be competing against when both arrive in the market.

Much like the Communicator, the Titan 2 Elite intends to be a full-fledged smartphone with half the screen of a typical handset to make way for the keyboard. The Titan 2 Elite doesn't have pricing or release details yet, but it will launch on Kickstarter next month. 

In hand, the Titan 2 Elite is a delightful throwback. Yet even a cursory use of its 4.03-inch (1,080x1,200-pixel resolution) AMOLED touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate shows how modern it is, with smooth browsing and a home screen full of apps. It is a bit thicker than today's phones (especially the Samsung Galaxy Edge and iPhone Air), but that only helps it rest better between my palms.

The big feature is the keyboard, which has a full QWERTY layout and reminds me of the old BlackBerry Curve. 

However, whereas that older phone used a rolling ball to control its cursor, the Titan 2 Elite has a brilliant solution -- all its physical keys use capacitive sensing. I literally ran my thumb up and down the keyboard, watching the screen roll up and down as if I'd done the same motion on its touchscreen. It's a gesture borrowed from some of the final BlackBerry phones in the 2010s, and is featured on some of Unihertz's prior Titan phones.

The touch keys are a pleasure to use, and the functionality cleverly sidesteps one of the bigger pitfalls of going with a physical keyboard, i.e., less room for a display. If my thumbs aren't blocking the screen because they're scrolling on the keys, it doesn't matter as much that it's half the size of the display on most modern phones.

There's another scrolling trick with the capacitive keyboard, too. You can set it so the left side moves the cursor while the right still scrolls up and down, and then simply tap anywhere on the right to "click" the cursor, enabling mouse-like navigation. Who needs a BlackBerry-style scrolling wheel?

Admittedly, this feature was a little rough in execution. I was told that the Titan 2 Elite models shown off at MWC are running a beta version of the final software, so this could improve when the phone launches. 

But wait, there's more. You can dive into the settings and set long-presses on each key as shortcuts to apps -- for instance, setting the "Y" key to open YouTube. This functionality means owners have over 26 shortcuts, though there's also a physical button on the right side of the phone that can be set as its own shortcut. 

Beyond the keyboard, the Titan 2 Elite has decent specs to rival any other smartphone: either a Dimensity 7400 or higher-end Dimensity 8400 chip, 256GB of storage (expandable up to 2TB, Unihertz said), two rear 50-megapixel cameras and a 32-megapixel selfie shooter. 

Travelers will love its twin physical SIM card slots and single eSIM. It launches with Android 16 and promises five years of software and security updates. It comes in black and the latest iPhone 17 Pro-style orange. And somehow, someone managed to cram a 4,050-mAh battery into the device.

The only mystery lies in how much memory will be included in the models heading to Kickstarter backers. 

Unihertz told me that the RAM shortage and skyrocketing prices have created uncertainty about how much will be allocated to production units. For what it's worth, the demo units I used had 12GB of RAM and 12GB of "memory extension," though it's unclear what that meant. It's possible the feature borrowed temporary memory from storage, a trick that some budget phones have used. 

If the Titan 2 Elite that comes out has the same functionality as the one I got to play with, I'd consider it a novelty throwback that's also a functional, well-designed smartphone. I wish more phone-makers took such inspiration from the past.