161–170 of 358 posts
It's astonishing to me that folks are still releasing phones which have no IP rating, let alone devices that are not fully waterproof (IP67). I'm probably in a class of folks who are in and around water more than most, however the flagships have all adopted this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is really fat: about 14mm, nearly twice as thick as most current phones.
It does look like two phones. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to make it actually two phones (or separate phone-sized devices), so you can use the touchscreen part as a phone, and have the other part be a pluggable keyboard + powerbank.
There's no free lunch, and it's easy to overlook the compromises involved in the devices that used to have physical keyboards. By modern standards, blackberrys had a woefully small screen and phones with slideout keyboards were very fat. This device doesn't look fat which suggests to me that the compromise might be either battery life or low processor power. That said, although this is definitely not for me, it's gen…
It is really fat: about 14mm, nearly twice as thick as most current phones.
I see positive comments about the keyboard, but is it really a good UX to type on such a small keyboard? I mean, when you use your laptop, pretty much all of your fingers are involved in the process of typing, whereas if the same keyboard is part of a mobile phone, you only use your thumbs, which is the opposite of how qwerty keyboards supposed to be used. It feels like the idea of a full-blown keyboard on a mobile p…
With that being said, I can blind type on my smartphone, just not with a QWERTY IME. I instead use a 4x4 grid-layout (MessagEase [1]) that's large enough to consistently hit the correct zones without any visual feedback.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is really fat: about 14mm, nearly twice as thick as most current phones.
It does look like two phones. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to make it actually two phones (or separate phone-sized devices), so you can use the touchscreen part as a phone, and have the other part be a pluggable keyboard + powerbank.
I see positive comments about the keyboard, but is it really a good UX to type on such a small keyboard? I mean, when you use your laptop, pretty much all of your fingers are involved in the process of typing, whereas if the same keyboard is part of a mobile phone, you only use your thumbs, which is the opposite of how qwerty keyboards supposed to be used. It feels like the idea of a full-blown keyboard on a mobile p…
The competition is the exact same thing btw, with less screen and tactile feedback. Both will give you text thumb repetitive stress problems, but doing that on a hard screen will more so. Remember, this isn't theoretical, we used to use these all the time.
The drawbacks of a physical keyboard are in things like flexibility (you can't easily remap or change the size of the keys) and thickness.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your baseline for how good swipe typing is? Pre-smartphone plenty of people touch typed text messages. No need to be staring at the screen. Stealth messages could be sent without taking the phone out of your pocket. Physical keyboards probably appear to a significant section of people who would like to use their phone as a productivity device. Surely if swipe typing is so good it would be an option in Windows…
I almost never swipe type unless I am in bed with one hand. Otherwise, tap typing is what I prefer. I have sort of a weird grip but can type at about 80-90wpm on my phone with enough accuracy that autocorrect works the majority of the time. I can also type reasonably well under my desk without looking, but that would be much easier with physical buttons. Does everyone else swipe type now?
I'm quite curious about your `weird grip'; 80-90 wpm on a touchscreen sounds absurdly fast.
I see positive comments about the keyboard, but is it really a good UX to type on such a small keyboard? I mean, when you use your laptop, pretty much all of your fingers are involved in the process of typing, whereas if the same keyboard is part of a mobile phone, you only use your thumbs, which is the opposite of how qwerty keyboards supposed to be used. It feels like the idea of a full-blown keyboard on a mobile p…
Separately, I am also curious for a phone like this that could run Android, LineageOS, and Ubuntu Touch - are there "dual boot" options in the mobile space? With 256GB storage it seems like it should be possible. I'd like to have old reliable Android as a daily driver, but maybe periodically drop into a less stable but more flexible environment like ubuntu.