Comment by dddw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dddw | Hacker News Reader

Yes I miss it everyday, I feel so clumsy typing on a piece of glass, and make soo many typos. I could type BLIND without typos whole emails while maintaining a casual conversation (much to the annoyance of my girlfriend). There are a lot of BlackBerry-stans still on crackberry.com holding out on older and newer BlackBerry phoned (key2 being the latest).

Really loved my Q10 with bb10os and my Keyone running Android! Sadly security updates stopped so had to get a slab, and run Blackberry Inbox on it (unified inbox of all your messaging apps, it is quite nice).

BlackBerry licensed Onward Mobility to make another keyboard phone, although they promised one this year, they are so silent I would be surprised if they are able to.

Bb10 was really a supernice OS, a lot of android and iOS stuff is inspired by it. blackberry still has some amazing patents and software, so it isn't a goner, but no phones directly from them anymore, only licensees (India, Indonesia, and hopefully worldwide via Onward Mobility)

I never knew the glorydays of bb07, but sure know if they stayed succesfull then (I.e. made less catastrophic mistakes and made strategic choices away from business products when they had a significant mobile phone marketshare ) how cool it might have been now with them still in the mobile phone field.

I really am surprised that with of all models of Android phones in the world, no one is making one with a keyboard. Even if it was a niche product, you'd think there would be an audience...

It is actually quite hard to make a GOOD physical keyboard, BlackBerry has this tech down. Any BlackBerry clone (I had a couple before ending on BlackBerry, Nokia and Samsung). Titan pocket exists though, gets mixed reviews I believe but overall being 'not too bad', which is different than the love BlackBerry phones tend to get.

I had some old samsung phone with a sliding keyboard and it was really nice. Much faster than typing on an iPhone that's for sure not to mention you could do it with your hands in a hoodie pocket thanks to the tactile feedback. Seems like that would be pretty great again today, you get the full face as a screen then you just slide the phone in half when you need to type.

I had a sony xperia pro for a while, but performance was clagging no matter what custom Android build I used. I do miss hardware qwerty keyboards

The Xperia Mini Pro was the perfect form factor. Palm sized, qwerty slider. I replaced mine so many times that all my jeans had mini-pro-shaped wear patterns outside the pockets. I would pay so much for a version with modern specs.

UniHertz Titan (kind of janky, but has a good hacking community), BlackBerry Key2, fXtec Pro and a few others. There is an audience, and we're out here being weird!

Planet computers are making them, but based on Psion PDAs rather than blackberry. I had a Gemini, but physically it wore out rather fast, and the camera was rubbish. Not sure how good their next generation is.

I have/had a Cosmo Communicator, and your one-sentence review is accurate for it as well.

I'm typing this from my Unihertz Titan Pocket, which was very successfully crowd funded recently. It's a good little phone. Prior to that I had a Blackberry Key2 whinch was pretty much the perfect Android phone IMHO. I have a Gemini PDA which is a great concept but the hinge isn't practical.

Before that a blackberry Passport which ran BBOS. Loved it too, at the time.

These devices do exist, and the niche is strong enough to support a small market segment.

I've been drooling over the Titan, but the lack of an AOSP-derived ROM for it is an absolute blocker. I do not trust manufacturer's firmware one iota, no matter what, and this is only getting worse over time.

The best thing Unihertz could do in my mind would be to dump a bunch of support and money at LineageOS and get their phones supported. Especially the one with the DMR walkie talkie; the lack of third-party support for those is crippling them.

Planet Computers in the UK make one inspired by the Psion 5 PDA. I have a Gemini which is still going strong, and have backed the Astro Slide which is just about to enter production:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transforme...

Fxtec pro1 has one. But I'm probably going to get a planet computers Astro slide since it does not have an annoying curved screen

Same here - I absolutely don't understand how major manufacturers can completely ignore this market niche.

With all existing Android users, even if just 0.1% would like to have a keyboard you would still have a business ( https://www.businessofapps.com/data/android-statistics/ - assuming that only half of those 2.8 billion android users use a mobile phone and not a tablet or something else, that would still give you a market of 140M potential customers?)

Maybe it's about patents (keyboard tech)? And/or maybe Android users are really stingy (I would pay +50$ for an integrated keyboard, maybe most would not)?

Don't know, big mistery.

> BlackBerry licensed Onward Mobility to make another keyboard phone

I would instantly throw away my IPhone (despite being happy with macOS/iOS) for a Blackberry like phone with LineageOS.

How about a GNU/Linux phone with a keyboard?

https://pineguild.com/pinephone-keyboard-first-impression-is...

a linux phone is a blessing in it self, but this style of keyboard is not a blackberry substitute. it is basically turning the phone into a tiny workstation, which could be quite useful - but it can't be used when standing (or even sitting)

I like Motorola Droid4 keyboard. I'm still keeping them around, because of keyboard and HDMI. They still work.

I think they are security wise very closed, bootloader is encrypted or something so hard to guess if that would be possible. Still would be nice

Depending on what you define "Blackberry like" as, the F(x)tec Pro 1 is that. Physical keyboard (slider style, though) and officially supported for LineageOS.

I see that there are some unlocked blackberry phones up on ebay, so you could possibly buy one.

https://ebay.com/b/BlackBerry-OS-Unlocked-Cell-Phones-Smartp...

> I could type BLIND without typos

Yup. I could type accurately and drive at the same time (don't do that today, kids) simply because I didn't have to take my eyes off the road at all. Those little raised bumps on F and J keys helped.

not quite the same, but

https://www.amazon.com/fosa-Wireless-Bluetooth-Keyboard-Port...

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