51–60 of 358 posts
"LINEAGEOS, UBUNTU TOUCH or ANDROID" is a euphemism for "we did not do the important, hard work of upstreaming drivers". This phone might be perfectly nice, but it's a "Linux phone" in a marketing sense only; nobody has properly ported Linux to it, and you'll be stuck with an ancient kernel full of proprietary userspace blobs. I'd love to hear otherwise, but I've seen this pattern repeat a number of times (the Gemini…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being able to touch-type is the reason I want one. You just can't do that with a touchscreen keyboard.
Can you touch type with only your thumbs? I don't think I could, but you'd have to with a keyboard that small.
It's only if I get into the infrequently used symbols that I have to check what I'm typing.
In a quick online typing test I get around 60wpm/300cpm (characters per minute), 0.0% errors.
For english language, swipe typing coupled with autocorrect works astonishingly well. So much so that I use it regularly because of lazyness. What segment does the physical keyboard appeal to? Youngins were born and raised touching the screen, so it's archaic to them. Old timers are jaded at this point to either wait for their dream phone or buy any cheap crap. So who's the target for this 900 usd device?
First of all, there are other languages than English. Some of them are programming languages. Also a touchscreen can not be operated with sweaty fingers or slightly unusual conditions. No they really can not be reliably used, recent years’ improvements notwithstanding. If I ever need to use my phone in an emergency outside in the cold with wet, sweaty perhaps bloody hands, I’d appreciate a 100% physical keyboard cont…
Man, we have very different lifestyles. Are you a serial killer? :)
> Some of them are programming languages
You’re the first person I’ve known who programs on phone hardware rather than using a larger computer with emulators. It must be quite painful for you!
For english language, swipe typing coupled with autocorrect works astonishingly well. So much so that I use it regularly because of lazyness. What segment does the physical keyboard appeal to? Youngins were born and raised touching the screen, so it's archaic to them. Old timers are jaded at this point to either wait for their dream phone or buy any cheap crap. So who's the target for this 900 usd device?
I honestly found keyboards like this cumbersome because I can only use two fingers. I thought that was there reason we got away from them in the first place? Then haptic feedback made it so touching the screen feels better, but the original iPhone showed you didn't need a keyboard. I am so confused on who would buy this device.
Yes, and that reason was "Apple did it and everyone else imitated them." There were other reasons too, having a keyboard on the phone itself like a Blackberry took up valuable screen real estate, and slide-outs made the phone ticker (when all manufacturers were crazy about making them thinner and thinner) and adds a mechanical point of failure. But other than that, it was largely trend-chasing.
For english language, swipe typing coupled with autocorrect works astonishingly well. So much so that I use it regularly because of lazyness. What segment does the physical keyboard appeal to? Youngins were born and raised touching the screen, so it's archaic to them. Old timers are jaded at this point to either wait for their dream phone or buy any cheap crap. So who's the target for this 900 usd device?
The cynic in me says: No one. Or as close to no one as possible: too few people. And too fickle people (enthusiasts are notorious for being fickle and changing their minds about tech every 5 minutes). We just won't notice anything as this product dies a silent death, a few months from now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
See [1], source: FTA. This is the spiritual successor of the Nokia N900, and it isn't a very good keyboard (but a better layout than N900). Its pretty much a rebrand of the same device with the same name from 2019 without the 'X'. Difference is it has better OS support (thanks to XDA, I guess), different SOC (recent SD600 series instead of SD835), and a different colour (blue instead of grey). If you want a very good…
Astro Slide 5G Transformer seems like a really good phone, one that I actually might get once it's past the Indiegogo stage. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transforme... EDIT: and it has a backlight keyboard!
PS: Re, backlight: aye, it does (at least Cosmo/Astro, not sure Gemini), and you can put it lower/higher/off (I pref to have it on as low as possible). Even on Linux (Gemian / Debian for Cosmo). There's some minor bleeding, esp on side, but IMO not annoying.
I really wish they would just make some keyboard-case-love-child for some of the more popular mainstream devices. I really want a physical keyboard, but I don't want to give up my daily driver for a $900 unknown variable.