Industrial design thrives on tension — the friction between nostalgia and innovation, between fragility and durability, between mainstream polish and DIY rebellion. Few projects capture this better than Marcin Plaza’s latest creation, where a broken Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is reborn as a miniature sliding phone with a BlackBerry-style physical keyboard tucked neatly beneath the screen.
This project, equal parts salvage operation and design statement, is not a consumer product but rather a manifesto: a rethinking of how foldables could evolve if physical tactility were not sacrificed on the altar of glass and gesture.
The Problem with the Flip: Fragility and Ephemerality
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 is sleek and futuristic, but its weakest point has always been obvious: the internal foldable screen. Even as Samsung iterated on hinge mechanics and protective films, the fundamental fragility of a plastic-based display remained. Plaza’s design hack acknowledges this flaw by abandoning the flexible interior panel altogether and focusing solely on the small external cover display — which becomes the device’s main interface.
In doing so, the project sidesteps durability issues while introducing an unexpected benefit: a far smaller footprint, akin to early-2000s sliding smartphones. This isn’t just repair — it’s design reimagination.
CNC Metal Meets BlackBerry Heritage
Plaza’s mod is built on a custom CNC-milled aluminium chassis, a material choice that contrasts sharply with Samsung’s glossy composite housing. Aluminium provides both rigidity and thermal stability, ensuring the new form factor doesn’t creak or flex under pressure.
But the real star of the build is the BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard, salvaged and reprogrammed via an Arduino Pro Micro. By emulating a USB keyboard, the module restores a long-lost dimension of smartphone design: tactile input. In an era of glass slabs, where typing has become an exercise in predictive correction, Plaza’s build reclaims physical certainty. The sliding mechanism is rudimentary — relying on a parallel linkage system — but its raw mechanical honesty feels appropriate for a one-off prototype.
Interface and Software Adaptation
Design is more than hardware. The Good Lock app and its MultiStar module transform Samsung’s tiny cover display into a fully functional Android interface, where all apps can run as though it were the main screen. This clever software adaptation ensures that the hardware shift feels natural rather than limiting.
Combined with the BlackBerry keyboard, the device functions almost like a shrunken BlackBerry Torch, but with modern Android power under the hood. Plaza even sneaks in extra touches, like a MagSafe-compatible charging ring, adding modularity that the original Flip lacked.
Retro-Futurism as Commentary
While the device will never hit store shelves — Plaza hasn’t released files or build instructions — its industrial design signals an important cultural itch: the desire for retro-futuristic hybrids. We want the tactility of BlackBerry, the compactness of sliders, but married with the flexibility of Android ecosystems.
via Notebookcheck/ Plaza
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