I can't be the only one who misses physical QWERTY keyboards on phones. C'mon, man. I want my physical keyboard back!
It's been a couple years now that I've had my Samsung Galaxy S4. And throughout this whole time, the ability to type sentences coherently has never ever improved! Because it's just some virtual swipe-y keyboard! I still roll my eyes and angrily tap the back button every time it makes a random word instead of the word I want. Which is every day, multiple times a day.
I miss my pink Pantech Impact with the physical keyboard. I miss the awesome that is the clicky-clacky of the buttons and the ability to multi-task while texting due to muscle memory. I'm honestly debating going back to my Impact, the only thing holding me back is the fact that I wouldn't be able to use Google Hangouts to text.
Looking up modern phones with physical keyboards is pretty much laughable. Most articles seem to have a hint of thinking you're an old geezer if you prefer a physical keyboard. I'm not a dinosaur! I'm twenty and I want an efficient phone, dammit! Most smartphones with keyboards have laughable memory and specs.
I guess it takes more time, effort, and money to manufacture a phone these days with a physical keyboard than it is to slap an app on a smooth screen.
Anyone else miss phones with physical keyboards? What kind of phone do you use, and if it's a smartphone, what keyboard application do you use?
Join the Discussion
Have you looked at BlackBerry's BB10 devices? In terms of productivity, they're second to none. The downside is that your app choices are somewhat limited, but with Amazon's App Store pre-installed on newer firmwares, the lack of apps is less of an issue. Yes, apps do not run as smoothly as they do on Android, but it's better than nothing.
Since you're on Android, have you tried Swiftkey? I find the prediction engine pretty solid, and bar one or two annoying things, it's what I'm using on my Android devices at the moment.
Personally I'd prefer to have the best of both worlds, which is why I'm keeping a close eye on the upcoming BlackBerry Slider (Venice). There was an unverified rumour that someone saw it running Android in the weekend.
The downside to Venice is that it's rumored to be ATT only. That's a horrible way in today's world to launch a product, can you imagine if Samsung or Apple tried to do that today? It'd be a horrible PR nightmare.
I use an ATT MVNO for the lower prices but because you can't use blackberry services on them it won't allow a blackberry to be used with data and MMS. I hope the Venice is more android and less Blackberry in this regard. I'd love to move to a BB and get my keyboard on.
My take on this, is that BlackBerry is no longer in the position it used to be, and maybe the only way they could get AT&T to sell their devices was to offer it exclusively to them. Maybe the version of the Venice is an AT&T exclusive and there will be a tweaked version for other markets ... that is what they did with the Passport.
With BB10 devices, you no longer need BIS or BES to use data, one of the best things that come with the newer handsets :)
I've never had a BlackBerry phone. I remember when my friend had one in middle school and he played Pong on it, such cool shit.
The BlackBerry Passport was one that was recommended on articles for smartphones with physical keyboards - but I'm so offput by its square shape. I don't think I'd be able to fit that in a pocket.
I haven't tried Swiftkey, actually. I've heard good things about it. I'm using Samsung's basic keyboard, which I thought uses Swiftkey? I'm not sure, actually. It's worth a shot to download. I'll try it out!
Ooh, now I'm browsing BlackBerry's website. They do really look like phones that are used to get stuff done. Maybe I should get one, hmm. The BlackBerry Classic looks nice.
Hey as a bb10 fan and a user of a blackberry passport, I highly recommend getting one the keyboard is amazing, fast, and very responsive. Although the phone is slightly uncomfortable to hold in one hand compared to other smart phones due to the size and shape but I did get used to using it with both hands pretty fast. As a plus the phone does comes in a variety of colors such as red blue and gold which is a nice change of pace from plain black and white even though they also come in those colors.
S'cool by me, I held my Pantech Impact like a Nintedo DS in order to type. :)
The fact that it comes in red is pretty nice. Good color. Although I think I'm going to hold off and wait for more news about the BlackBerry Venice. I'm not really sold on that bulky square shape, haha.
It's all good lol I'm also waiting for a release date and pricing so I can pick one up myself.
Wow ... another BlackBerry fan out in the wild, that's a rarity :)
Have you used any other qwerty BlackBerry device in the past? If you did, how difficult was the transition from one to the other? That's my biggest fear about the new 3 row keyboards, the missing 'alt' and 'shift' keys and symbols. Heck, I still miss the trackpad but don't feel the Classic is enough of an upgrade to the Q10 to change devices.
TBH I've only ever had a z30 and a blackberry storm 9530 along side a few Samsung galaxy phones but since I was used to using a full touch smart phone so the change was kind of drastic one since I was never used to using a qwerty phone.
Haha ... BrickBreaker is the game you're thinking of. I knew someone that had to have their BlackBerry taken off them because they were putting off studying for exams because of that game :) Unfortunately, it no longer comes pre-installed on newer BlackBerry devices.
I think Samsung uses Swiftkey's prediction engine (rumour has it so does BlackBerry for its touchscreen devices), but they are different in terms of layout and features. That's the reason why Swiftkey wasn't affected by the recent security vulnerability that was found on Samsung's keyboard. I have a Samsung device as well, and Swiftkey is one of the first apps installed after a wipe. You should give it a go, since it doesn't cost anything.
I also use a BlackBerry Q10, and I'll admit that the screen is no longer big enough (especially since my other device is a phablet). In saying that, in terms of productivity, reliability, battery life ... the BlackBerry is second to none. Like I mentioned in my first post ... the new BlackBerry Slider is probably the best of both worlds when it's released; a physical keyboard with a decent sized screen.
Yes! I actually Googled it after making my post - for some dumb reason I thought the slider part was always sticking out like in the picture you linked me, but then I realized it slides out the keyboard and that's awesome! Duh, that's why it's called a slider.
I just tried out Swiftkey. It's... okay. I ended up uninstalling it, I don't really like the fact that the numbers 0 through 9 have to be pressed with a long hold. I don't really mind the default Samsung keyboard.
Regardless, any physical keyboard beats a virtual one for me anyday!
Thanks for telling me about the BlackBerry Venice, I am super-duper gonna keep an eye on that one, especially with the rumors about it supporting Android!
No worries. On a side note ... there is an option to always display the numbers row at the top on Swiftkey :)
Oh, dang. Maybe I should give it another chance. Thanks for telling me!
Haha ... all good. I guess that's why I prefer Swiftkey to the Samsung keyboard. It's a little more customizable.
Any word on what Swiftkey does with the data collects?
I don't like physical QWERTY, but I think it's sad that all phones look like the same nowadays.
That too - I remember when in high school sometime getting a new phone was hot shit. They were always so different. Of course, most popular was the Motorola Razr, but when someone had something different there was always like a small gathering of people checking out the new phone. So many different types, shapes, sizes, and colors! Phones that flip one, slide open, spin open, ones that you could attach charms to, ones with mirrors. Dang, that was fun!
I used to have an old Nokia E63 which was, for all intents and purposes, my very first smartphone. Sure, it didn't have a touchscreen or accelerometer/gyroscope features that seem to be the norm in smartphones now, but it carried me well into 2012 when I got my very first "modern" smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Note.
Nokia was on top of the mobile phone world before Apple, Blackberry and Samsung started coming into the picture, and you could easily see why. My E63 had features out the wazoo:
1. A 2.36" display at 320x240px resolution
2. A boatload of connectivity options including GPRS, EDGE, 3G, WiFi, and Bluetooth
3. Around 100 MB internal storage, and MicroSD card up to 16 GB officially (32 GB unofficially)
4. A Micro-USB connector (very few phones had this at the time)
5. A 2MP fixed-focus flash camera with video recording @ 320x240px and photos @ 1600x1200px
6. And most importantly, a full Qwerty keyboard
With its included operating system, Symbian OS9.2 S60 3.1 Edition, and all the features listed above, this truly was a highly capable business phone. Its included software had essentials like a PDF viewer, Quick office with MS Office 2007 support (Word / Excel / Powerpoint editor), a WAP browser, and an email client. And thanks to the then prolific Symbian OS development scene, I also had apps that let me share my 3G data connection as a personal hotspot, browse the internet with synced bookmarks using Opera, chat via instant messenger apps such as Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, MSN, and even Whatsapp, play roguelike games such as Dweller (which work so much better with a physical keyboard than a touchscreen), and even use Spotify. I'm fairly certain that if Nokia had continued developing the Symbian OS, it would be bigger than the Windows app store.
While I do miss that little beast of a phone and the amazing keyboard it had, technology quickly left it behind. WiFi N and AC are here now, as well as HSDPA and LTE, leaving the old wireless connections in the dust. Mirroring displays via Miracast/AirPlay/Chromecast is super neat. Bigger, faster storage and processors allow for apps and features that simply aren't possible on my old Nokia E63. And ever since Swype came out on Android back when I had my Galaxy Note, I've become more and more efficient at typing/swyping on a touchscreen keyboard.
It's good to look back and think of our past gadgets and the "good times" we had with them once in a while. But improving our technology is what got humans from sticks and stones to silicon and lithium, so it behooves us to continue to adapt.
I think the reason why Nokia was left behind by everyone else was because of Symbian. If they had focused their efforts on Meego sooner, things may have turned out differently.
[This comment was removed]
I definitely miss them. I loved being able to type without looking and just know that I didn't make any mistakes.
I've been using Fleksy for the last 6 months or so, and the autocorrect works very well for me. I can almost type without looking at the phone at all at this point (still need to glance at it every few words), and the gestures work really well.
I still miss my LG Xenon right up to this very day. I had it for my first two years of college and it was amazing. Perfect clicky qwerty keyboard, wasn't huge, and the thing was built to last. I've dropped it several times and it still worked like a charm. It even survived an accidental drunken drop into my toilet lol. After sanitizing it and letting it dry for a day or so it still kept kicking but the touch screen went kind of wonky. Didn't bother me much because the keyboard still worked like the first day I got it.
I used to miss a physical keyboard until the swipey keyboards came in. Have you tried swipe-typing? Windows Phone has it, and so do some Android devices, and I think iPhone added it recently too.
It seems dumb and impossible, but when you actually try typing that way it is a revelation (well, it was for me!). I'm not exaggerating when I say that within minutes of first typing this way on my Lumia phone I was typing faster than I ever did on my old Droid keyboard.
Give it a try if your phone has it (even if your phone doesn't have it there is probably a 3rd party app...I believe one is called Swype).
The downside of swiping is that the algorithm is terrible with proper nouns and any non-real words, though that's a software limitation that can be overcome.
I do actually use Swype typing. :'( It's certainly 1,000% better than pressing each key, but it still gives sooo many errors. Especially when trying to swype a word that has a lot of characters on one line.
Luckily, it seems Sumsung's learns words. Now my problem is I have a million "Yay," "Yaaay," "Yaaaaaaaay," and "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY" in my dictionary. :P