QWERTY lives: alleged Motorola Droid 5 leaked in photos

Smartphones with physical keyboards are becoming increasingly rare these days: aside from the BlackBerry Q10 and its limitations, there really aren’t any high-end or mid-range options available any more. While most consumers seem to be content with the virtual keyboards on smartphones, there are some that still swear by real keys. Motorola’s original Droid line has long featured a hardware keyboard, and though the company has released a completely new line of all-touch smartphones, it seems that it still plans to introduce an option for keyboard lovers.

According to images posted on Chinese social network Weibo, Motorola has a new smartphone in its pipeline for Verizon that features a slide-out landscape keyboard. Ostensibly called the Droid 5, the new phone features the same five-row QWERTY keyboard as the Droid 4, and has a 4.3 to 4.5-inch display. It’s also said to support wireless charging, have NFC, be resistant water and dust exposure, and be thinner than previous generations. Suspiciously, the device seen in the images is running a rather outdated version of Android 4.0.3, so it’s tough to say how old this alleged Droid 5 actually is.

It’s not yet clear when the Droid 5 will make it to Verizon’s lineup, but with the Droid Ultra, Droid Maxx, and Droid Mini now available, we imagine it won’t be long before the Droid 5 is made official. Despite the best efforts of Apple, Samsung, and HTC, it doesn’t look like the keyboard is ready to die just yet.