Motorola is apparently readying a device with a QWERTY keypad under a horizontal slider, marking the return of a form factor that was previously a staple of many manufacturers’ smartphone line-ups.

According to reports originating from Chinese social networking site Weibo, the device would feature a 4.3-inch or 4.5-inch touch screen, concealing a five-row keypad. Other mooted features include wireless charging, NFC, and water/dust resistance.

The landscape QWERTY slider design has previously been used by a number of vendors, including Motorola, HTC, LG, Samsung and numerous others.

In recent months and years, vendors have focused on touch-screen only devices, as screen resolutions have improved and sizes crept upwards – indeed, large screen devices have broken out to become a product sub-category in their own right (phablets).

This has essentially left BlackBerry as the only company to have a QWERTY device among its premium device portfolio.

QWERTY keypads do have some advantage for enterprise and messaging users, where easy text input is a major factor in device use.

But earlier this year, Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia, said that the company, which had previously offered both enterprise and consumer QWERTY devices, had seen a shift to full-touch devices that is “happening very rapidly”.