Why I’m using a keyboard phone in 2023 | Hacker News Reader

Why I’m using a keyboard phone in 2023

theverge.com

86 points_xivi99 comments

I miss the keyboard on the HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1[0], it hid behind the screen until you needed it, so there was no need to sacrifice screen or keyboard size.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Dream

I still miss my Nokia N900.

Being able to feel a text or other message come in, pulling it out and popping the keyboard to activate the screen, reading the message, and then being able to type my response with two thumbs without looking at the screen was a delight.

Plus the one window per conversation thing across all protocols (it was IIRC libpurple backed) worked -really- well due to the extremely good window switching system.

Oh, and a resistive touch screen which meant (a) tactile feedback (b) it actually worked in mild rain.

Ok, it was significantly pants at pretty much everything else, but as an upgraded pure communications device I don't think I've ever liked anything better (remove 'upgraded' and it and my beloved series of 6310i dumbphones are neck and neck).

Oh, I loved that phone. The phone was bulky, but it never seemed like too much in the pocket. And there's something to be said for the satisfying click as you flipped open the phone.

Ours are now play "phones" for the kids, and they still have that satisfying click 15 years later. I now swipe type faster than I could type on that thing, but I did love it at the time.

For me it was the G2. But yes, very similar practical design.

This was my first Smartphone. I miss it. Good old times. :-D

Aren't sliding keyboards dust traps?

I feel you're just trying to find any reason to dislike a phone keyboard.

This one hides away, so the "takes valuable screen real estate away" angle is not valid.

So instead, beware of dust!

Anyhow, have no idea why they would be dust traps. People's cases are far worse for that.

(I don't use a case)

I'm pretty hard on phones - I tend to end up having to pick all the dirt and sawdust out of my charging and headphone ports a couple of times a year. But somehow I don't remember having issues with dust in keyboards. I think on a lot of them the keys were all one piece of flexible plastic so there wasn't really a way in.

Not in my experience. Maybe some pocket lint makes it between the keyboard and the screen, but that's easily wiped off. I don't live near a desert, though.

I had a couple of HTC PocketPCs and a Palm Pre back in the day. All were sliders and never had dust issues. Just unpolished UI (WinMo) and underpowered hardware (Pre).

I'd love a "modern" phone that's a slab with a landscape slider keyboard. Don't care if it makes the phone thicker (especially if they use the space to cram in some more battery capacity).

My sliding keyboard phone used to disassemble itself whenever I dropped it, which had the unintended benefit of being self-cleaning.

Foldable phones, canceled?

I had the "blackberry key one" from 2017 to 2018 and I really loved it. Like the Titan it had a keyboard, but it was an otherwise normal sized phone with a passable camera. Unfortunately it broke after one year, basically it split in half. I was hoping Blackberry would continue iterating on the design and I looked forward to buying a future, sturdier version but from what I can tell they abandoned that.

So... When I saw the kickstarter for the Titan I was excited. I have one in my desk but have never used it as my daily driver. I think the author really undersells how bad the out of the box experience is with this phone, sure Instagram stories look bad, I expected that. What I didn't expect is that almost all of the "optimized" apps that came pre-installed on the phone are poorly integrated with the screensize and keyboard. Furthermore, the keyboard is hard to type on! I mean physically, the keys are difficult to press down. I assume if I used this phone more frequently, this problem would resolve itself.

At the end of the day I don't regret buying the phone though. I have been an Android developer for around a decade and it's depressing how little experimentation is done with the hardware these days.

That's similar to my own experience. I quite liked my Blackberry Key2. I bought a Titan Pocket, but it's just not that well made either physically or in terms of software. It's quite heavy. The keyboard has an odd layout. The screen is significantly smaller than the Key2's screen. And the software is Google Play apps plus a weird assortment of off-brand East Asian Android apps.

After years of using a physical phone keyboard (which I prefer because it reduces feels of RSI), I gave up on the Titan Pocket and just switched to a Google Pixel.

They've since moved on to the Titan Slim, which has a narrow aspect ratio like most Android phones.

Thank you for sharing :) Will probably impulse buy this in the next 24 hours. Also wow, this reminds me a lot of the key one.

I am a big fan of physical buttons -- in phones, in-car entertainment systems, and other gadgets that we operate with our hands/fingers. And am generally disdainful of sacrifies made to physical controls in favour of virtual ones. I also hope to see a few more physical buttons for vital functions (like mute or camera shut off on phones and laptops)

Having said that --

But one benefit of the on-screen virtual keyboards that is hard to beat is ... flexibility of changing keyboard layouts / sizes, AND multiple languages. I have enjoyed typing in my native tongues with friends and family and nothing so-far beats the experience of inputting text directly using a native keyboard that is accessible with a single swipe on the spacebar (I use a Android, Samsung).

> And am generally disdainful of sacrifies made to physical controls in favour of virtual ones

I agree with you with one single exception. I own a high-end blender that has a touch-screen and I think that's the one and only use-case that I have found where virtual controls win out by far. Not having the risk of food spilling into keys on a food-making device, and being able to wipe up spills quickly and easily with a dish cloth is a great application.

Other than that, virtual controls can GTFO ... especially on general purpose computing devices.

Stovetops too imo. Being able to clean the whole thing with a quick wipe is so nice. Hate having to clean and remove knobs.

I have a high-end blender with two toggles and a dial. No keys, no screen.

For what it's worth, and I know this isn't a perfect fix, you can set the keyboard language to anything. The keys still show qwerty obviously, but they'll be mapped to your language of choice's keyboard. You can also bring up software keyboards that show on the screen, but let you still use the keys to click the virtual keys.

I miss my N900. On screen keyboards are a PITA, they have zero haptic feedback and I constantly end up fat fingering all over the place.

I don't miss my N900; I still use it. I do not use it so much as a phone and more as a pocket computer. Install PostmarketOS on it with Emacs. Made a configuration that is very comfortable with the keyboard. I actually use daily, using it to write my journal, emails, have Telegram working on it within Emacs. Even whip it out in the train now and again to do some explorative coding. My favorite use of it is writing down my dreams at night. I can do this blind at night, don't have to look at the keyboard or screen which is excellent for dream recall.

For all these things the device is perfect. Though actually browsing the web with a modern browser is a no-go it is simply too slow. Would give a lot for a modern replacement. I have looked into the Gemini PDA though it is not the same as you need to put that device down on a surface to really use it. Not so with the Nokia N900. If anybody knows of a modern equivalent, please tell me.

I'd love a modern equivalent. Maybe have a look at the Gemini by planet computers. Isn't there something you can do with pihole to get browsing? I remember someone doing this where it removes adverts and compresses images for a better mobile experience.

That is actually a great idea, thank you. A quick search came up with Browservice I will give it a go tonight.

Quite jealous… mine died after about 3 years because the usb port came unsoldered inside and the only way to charge it was to take the battery out and use an external charger :/

I only had the n810 but I gotta say I liked my Cybiko Xtreme keyboard better than that one.

I specifically wish that device could somehow have modern production, modern software and support, even with the same screen. The design was not beautiful but by gosh was it functional in supporting beautiful things, like comfortably chatting with my future wife during university lectures.

The n810 was pretty though, and to this day the keyboard slide makes the kiddos smile like "whaaat" :-)

The N810 keyboard was quite nice, too. Better than on the N900. Of the mobile devices I’ve had, only the Psion S5 had a nicer keyboard.

The biggest problem I had with the keyboard on mine was the top row being so close to the display, I think?

Then there was the stylus issue, where it seemed to be permanently incapable of reliable calibration. So much for mobile digital sketching.

I did some web dev work on the 810 while traveling, but quickly realized that my MSI Wind was like a speed demon in comparison. So it was more of a media player, clock, alarm, and ebook reader but it did those really well.

If it came back, it's the type of device I can see HaikuOS being a natural fit for...

N900 was the last phone I had with physical keys too, and I miss being able to type on it quickly and accurately, in a way I just haven't been able to on Android or iOS devices.

There was a lot else good about that phone too - a full-fat gnu/linux device that actually fulfilled its basic requirements to function as a phone! Terminal as standard :)

To be frank, while I preferred N900 keyboard for writing messages, I found programming on the phone to be less pleasant on N900 than it was on Neo Freerunner with resistive touch screen. I find today's capacitive screens to be a PITA for both these use cases though.

As a side note on the state of phones; I am a bit disappointed by the current state of them. When I walk past the phone section in the electronic store it is nothing but boring black slabs. No real innovation, No real reason to buy one over the other. For me there is absolutely, zero, reason to buy a new phone to replace my current five year old black rectangle. Which is perfect against e-waste of course, but part of me also would like to get excited about quirky new innovations.

Blame YouTubers/Influencers for that, they constantly push for uniformity with "comparisons". Samsung released a new phone? Top phone YouTubers will quickly compare how they like the feel of iPhone or Pixel vs Samsung and how it holds on their hand, how it's matte, how it's sized and companies want to win those points. So satisfying them is a priority. So we end up with matte black, thin, rectangles.

This just signifies that we have got the design right. I don't go out and compare this years models of bicycles, because the design has been perfected for decades. The ones selling now look the same as my 5 year old bike.

Rapid change and improvement just means an immature product.

But the bicycle design wasn't determined by influencers. It was defined by years of design improvements by multiple innovators. Influencers bought us phones with glass backs, no battery, non existent headphone jack. Weird hole on the screen, curved edges, camera bumps. The design is definitely not right, okay they didn't bring it but they normalized it so much that companies are in pursuit of their requirements.

I'm using a foldable phone with a pressure-sensitive pen, so I'm not familiar with this lack of innovation that you speak of.

I can prop it up, pull out a folding BT keyboard and I've got a mini laptop that fits in a coat pocket.

There are foldable phones!

From the article:

Yes, that means I can access all of my favorite desktop keyboard shortcuts on my phone. Need to select all? Function-A. Want to search a page? Function-F. Undo? Yup, I can do that, too. I can even hit Function-L in Chrome to jump to the address bar and immediately start typing in the site I want to go to.

That is something that I miss in my iPhone. The ability to press 'del' or undo.

Sounds like we just need modifier keys added to the touch-screen keyboards.

‘Undo’ can be done by shaking your phone

I was confused by my iPhone asking me constantly if I want to undo typing. Turned out this was the device thinking I am shaking to undo.

Interesting. Do you find you have a shakier than usual phone grip?

I know that iPhones can alert the user when ambient noise levels exceed safety thresholds, and Apple Watches can detect and alert about detected falls, and even atrial fibrillation. I wouldn't be surprised if phone accelerometer signal processing could predict something like Parkinson's disease.

This thing triggers all the time on me when I do something like drop the phone on myself.

Is there a specific shake pattern? I use twist for camera and handshake chop for flashlight

I’d love a shake pattern for flashlight on iOS!

It's really handy, I don't generally even use the flashlight in my pocket when I have one on me, but somehow the phone gesture flashlight gets used about 10-20x daily, even for walking into a room without hitting the light switch, since the phone is in my hand.

Is this an iOS feature? Where do I find it?

Not that I know of.

Unfortunately the best flashlight gesture experience in the business seems to be sold by Motorola. At least last I checked.

My friend liked mine and even found an Android app for trying it on his phone, but basically it was 3x slower than the Moto gestures version despite being on a much faster phone. Not sure why.

I love how the ability to shake your phone to turn on the flashlight is practically gated by Motorola. God forbid we are able to do what we want with our phones. Gotta get vendor approval first.

FWIW, with a bluetooth keyboard it is pretty shocking how complete the keyboard support in iOS.

I have a K480 at the office for those random times I need to respond to something on my iPhone and don't want to deal with the crippling restrictions of an onscreen keyboard, and I hugely recommend it. With the keyboard almost every norm of macOS is supported.

When I need to respond on my phone, I usually won't have a Bluetooth keyboard lying around

I believe the keyboard support in iOS is thorough due to the iPad Pro and its related keyboard accessory.

I love phones with keyboards, I've been using a terminal style launcher (https://github.com/fAndreuzzi/TUI-ConsoleLauncher) for almost 6 years now, but I really can't get behind the Unihertz devices. The components and the build quality are just so weak compared to the Blackberry Key 1 and 2.. That trend seems to hold true for the non-keyboard Unihertz devices too. Sadly, the Key1&2 are a little slow and don't get updates, so i am back using touch screens again.

That phone is quite thick. For the same height, one could add a slide-out keyboard case to a normal smartphone. However, such a thing does not seem to exist (anymore, according to my quick google image search)...

Steve Ballmer on the release of the first iPhone:

“And it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine.”

I mean, the blackberry was far better than the iPhone at email at the time. It wasn’t even close. Obviously the iPhones versatility won.

Microsoft had the last laugh though. In the 2000s, Blackberry basically owned "enterprise cloud" for mobile communications; BBM and BES. Today that's been replaced by an Android or iPhone running Outlook and using Active Directory. That's really what Ballmer wanted, he didn't care about hardware or consumer applications like Apple did.

And he was right, typing anything meaningful on a touch screen was awful up until the point swipe keyboards were made.

So instead we got rid of emails! Win win.

But then we built the kraken called slack, teams.

Pfft.

Voice messages

Whatever you do, avoid the Planet Computer phones. They look amazing, but my experience with the company has been incredibly shady and I am not alone in this. It's a shame too because they really do look so good. More companies ought to make a similar offering.

I was big on blackberries back in the day. It was a true productive phone. The contact hub, that concentrate all communication witha contact, dosent matter the app, I still remember walking on the streest taking calls, reading emails and sneding meetings invites on it.

It just worked.

Also Biz plans where grat because at the time where the only no limit data plan avaliable. I would com back home during a long bus riding playing poker online.

I started on the Psion 3a, then 5mx, Nokia E90, Nokia N900.

And then sadly I ran out of good options.

Nothing beats a good keyboard (though it does also need to be a good one).

I would love another clamshell design, maybe with an e-ink display, running debian like my N900.

EDIT: I do have a beady eye on Planet Computing's machines: https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/devices

I've been using the Gemini for 5 years or so, and also signed up for the slide; after years they are still to deliver. Bad communication, no numbers about units shipepd, barely any info on progress in their status updates on Indigogo - we'll have to see if I will ever receive the device. Initial reviews are not good either: the keyboard seems to be crappy and missing or duplicating keystrokes - a shame, given the keyboard would be the main selling point of the device.

That's a shame to hear. Seems software support is also an issue (I guess as it often is with mobile hardware).

I had both the Blackberry KeyOne and the Key2; I loved the combination of normal Android software with a real keyboard. When my Key2 broke last year, I bought the cheapest Samsung available, since I knew I was probably going to hate using it anyway - there is just no joy in fumbling around on a glass keyboard. I hope there will be a good keyboard option available next time I need a phone.

I wish there was a decent option for a keyboard phone these days...

I still have a Blackberry Key 2 that I use for development. Awesome little phone: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/27/17504714/blackberry-key2-...

Fully android with a nice keyboard that was even touch-sensitive, so you could run your finger across it to scroll. Absolute game-changer, for me at least. I have been wanting someone to add a touch-sensitive volume rocker that I could use the touch-sensitivity for scrolling since at least 2008, so having it show up as a proof of the concept on a keyboard was excellent. Of course, it still sucks that no one has actually made a touch-sensitive volume rocker with those dual functionalities.

Anyway, phone was solid and snappy, it could run every app I needed, and had all kinds of "Blackberry Security" which felt pretty good, even if it was just 'state of the art' rather than anything special. It was also a nice confirmation of my biases, because I was able to type faster on that keyboard than on any digital keyboard I've tried before or since. I really, REALLY believe that tactile buttons are superior for a lot of micro-reasons, and they BBK2 only reinforced that belief. So I definitely agree with the author that physical keyboard lift a soft-limit in typing speed, at least for certain types of people. No swype has ever been as accurate, no digital key has ever had the range of input (straight down, weird side presses, press first row; lift above second row; press third row, wiggle press for doubles, etc, etc), and no orienter is ever as instantly recognized as the little bumps on the home keys. When I'm using a tiny physical keyboard, I can fly at about 100 WPM; digital keyboards lock me at around 60-ish.

Unfortunately, the phone's not 5G, and definitely shows its processor age, these days. But I still love to have it around for note-taking on the wi-fi and for leaving in dev mode so I can push apps to it for testing.

The Key2 was a truly great phone; BB messed it up by pricing it too high, then releasing a cheaper version (Key2 LE) that had a much worse keyboard. Meanwhile the original quickly sold out its initial production run, and the supply wasn't replenished. It was either Key2 LE or nothing.

Michael "MrMobile" Fisher has reviewed the Unihertz Titan Pocket:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DpQff_8R7es

Notable to me because he is one of the only phone reviewers that is enthusiastic about a return of keyboard phones.

Pinephone is saving the world here[0].

[0] https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pinephone-pro-keyboard-...

Yeah I got a Pinephone for this exact peripheral and it doesn't even correctly fit the size of the phone. Not universal for all their phones so beware.

Per grandparent's link:

> Compatible with PinePhone and PinePhone Pro

How did yours not fit? The body of the OG and Pro Pinephones are the exact same, it's only the internals that are different. I literally use the back cover from my OG Pinephone for my Pro, and am hanging onto my dead Pinephone for spare parts, should I ever break the screen on my Pro.

I have the current version on the site, Pinephone Beta Edition, and it is too large for the keyboard case

My keyboard accessory fits both of my PinePhones and my PinePhone Pro - it's not easy to put it in or out, but that makes it stay in and not fall out accidentaly.

That said, in mine the accesories battery no longer charges, so there are definitely issues with the keyboard accessory aside from being humongous.

I have the original Pinephone and haven't sprung for this yet so thanks for the heads up.

"The camera is so bad I’d be better off just writing out a description of what I’m looking at rather than taking a picture of it." ...

total deal-breaker. otherwise I was getting excited about this device! :-(

Dude can make or have made a new leather holster. Probably takes 30 minutes. An hour if you stitch it rather than rivet. Don't give up the dad dream!

This really makes me miss my Palm Pre. The keyboard on that had this lovely texture that was perfectly designed to catch the tip of your fingers.

"Because I like it better."

There, saved you a click.

I used the Titan for about a year, after having gone too far in the small-as-possible direction (Jelly 2). I thought I wanted a hardware keyboard again, last one was an Env2 which I remember loving, but it wasn't really any better than an onscreen one and there are a lot of downsides to the odd screen size.

I'm pretty sad with myself for getting OK-ish at using a Twiddler then forgetting. A one handed chording keyboard continues to feel ideal here.

To be fair it does imply need two hands, one to hold the display and one to type. Or you could find a way to wear your display... Arm mount your phone, or a heads up display.

My 84 year-old mother who only uses her smartphone for talking and texting would love a keyboard phone.

I'm not close to 84, and I'd kill for a feature phone (dumbphone?) that do 4g and have a qwerty physical keyboard.

Any keyboard model run well on lineage these days? I've kind of given up on them. The Curve 9320 was my favorite phone ever, and the Q10 was alright. These days I have an old Moto. Map/route applications don't run very well on it so I'll likely upgrade.

15 years ago Steve Jobs convinced the world why physical keyboard is a bad idea and rightly so. Of course there are trade offs but for me having no keyboard means more screen real estate which wins over everything.

Sliding keyboards sacrifice no screen real estate

This is 2023 and dirt cheap flip feature phones (dumbphones) are still widely available (think pre-paid / burner). How come no-one makes one with physical qwerty?

It happens every now and again, they're just generally only released in India for some reason.

Fixed keyboards aren't so nice if you have to switch between alphabets.

A desktop keyboard might be fine with two alphabets, but a phone one is just too small.

> Also, there’s this astoundingly annoying bug where things just kind of break if the first thing I type into a text box is a number or symbol.

As time advances with technology things becomes boring and uniform, no more unique website, no more having the option of “actually” choosing

Why not have a typical modern phone and pack a light-weight keyboard?

From the image, it looks like the author taps, 2007-style, rather than swiping:

https://duet-cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0x0:600x338/1080x608/fi...

I find tapping to be way faster and more reliable than swiping.

I don’t think that’s a weakness — having done both, I went back to tapping on iOS. I find it easier to type without looking at the keyboard that way.

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