Audio player loading… We were told a 5G BlackBerry phone was coming out in 2021. It would have made a pleasant break from the waves of Samsungs, Xiaomis and Motorolas we review every year. This has not panned out. We aren’t surprised. Original owner RIM stopped being the force behind BlackBerry in 2016 when the name was licensed to Chinese tech giant TCL. TCL took a leaner approach but its reign ended in 2020, and then the brand passed on to OnwardMobility, an American company. BlackBerry returning to the US is a refreshing change after years of Chinese brands dominating most new developments in mobile. But where TCL was already a huge manufacturing operation, OnwardMobility had to set up new manufacturing partnerships for this BlackBerry project. We’re seeing the last bits of the BlackBerry brand squeezed from the tube here, but getting them out is harder than you might think. Could there be other phone brands out there worth bringing back to life? Let’s dig back through the years of smartphones to find the series that might be worth a refresh while we wait to see if the 5G BlackBerry is real or 2022’s vaporware in waiting. Wileyfox (2015-2018) The…