BlackBerry Passport getting set to follow Classic with a new life on Android

Old, discarded BlackBerry phones are having a renaissance moment. We recently witnessed an initiative where decade-old BlackBerry Classic phones are being revived with newer hardware to run Android on those devices. And now, the BlackBerry Passport is in for a similar treatment.

Zinwa Technologies is the company that has recently started reviving old BlackBerry Classic handsets by installing new hardware and running Android 13 on them. Now that BlackBerry Classic mods are already in mass production, the company is shifting its attention to other products. It had previously promised to provide DIY kits for enthusiasts who wish to revive their old BlackBerry Passport, and has now updated the information about availability on its Discord server (via Liliputing).

While Zinwa is offering similar kits for the Classic too, it is also selling pre-built units. Unfortunately for those who want the Passport, the company will not sell finished units and has cited the limited quantity of the BlackBerry Passport as the reason. While the Classic is codenamed Q25 Pro, the Passport kits will be sold as P26.

If the idea psyches you, some disappointment is set to follow. Zinwa has said the kits won’t be available until 2026. When exactly in 2026? We don’t know yet. Perhaps the team doesn’t either, as it hasn’t concluded testing the hardware.

Zinwa hasn’t finalized the internals that will replace the existing hardware inside the Passport. Notably, the revived BlackBerry Classic features a MediaTek Helio G99 chipset, upgraded cameras, a USB-C port, and a larger battery. We want to expect similar or better specifications on the revived Passport, but there’s no guarantee at the moment.

So far, the team has been able to figure out the keyboard and the screen for the phone, but other components might still need the team’s attention.

Zinwa has clarified that this kit will only work with the first generation of Passport and will not support the Silver Edition, possibly due to its limited availability.

Interestingly, while the original Passport ran the BlackBerry 10 operating system with support for certain Android apps through runtime. The company was also rumored to launch a special variant of the Silver Edition running Android entirely. Although that never came into being, some people discovered early prototypes and recently revived the hardware by swapping the eMMC chip; however, the older hardware could only support up to Android 11.

If you don’t want to wait until 2026 to try out Zinwa’s spin on the Passport, you can follow the instructions in this Reddit thread to build your own BlackBerry Passport with Android. While you do that, bear in mind that this would require some technical acumen and expertise with soldering electronic components.