Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

fxtec.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 358 posts

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#171

Post by tetris11 »

chaorace wrote: post #164
andreygrehov wrote: post #139

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…

I think the main advantage is blind typing. No amount of muscle memory can trump the tactile feedback of raised keys and home-row notches. When you're forced to rely on sight, you make more errors and are limited to using just one finger at a time ( because your eyes can only focus on one spot at once ). With that being said, I can blind type on my smartphone, just not with a QWERTY IME. I instead use a 4x4 grid-layo…

instant haptic feedback, nothing better than that

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#172

Post by solatic »

tifadg1 wrote: post #23

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 bought a Pro1, their first-gen model. Termux had packages for both vim, kubectl, and the Teleport client binary (tsh). Unfortunately, it didn't work because Termux refused (refuses?) to run within the Android work profile, but if it did, it would have permitted running kubectl commands - checking status, restarting deployments, scaling deployments, etc., all from the phone in your pocket.

Running kubectl edit and then using vim from a physical keyboard is very doable. Trying to do it from a touch keyboard is a nightmare.

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#173

Post by andagainagain »

andrew_ wrote: post #86

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.

This will always be a problem, because the problem is basically "It suprises me that not everyone has the fancy features advertised 3 years ago on a flagship device".

It's like people being suprised that the newest laptops don't all have high DPS displays and thin bezels, but they ignore that 1 - those aren't easy to engineer and 2 - they sacrifice things like repairability, reliability, and manufacturing cost to do so.

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#175

Post by legohead »

tifadg1 wrote: post #23

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 used swype up to a few years ago, and now I use speech to text all the time. It isn't perfect, and for some reason loves to confuse pronouns (I becomes HE, why Google?). But it's ease of use and speed is unmatched.

Typing on a physical keyboard feels like going back a couple steps. I would like actual buttons on the phone though - for gaming. And maybe a little touchpad? That's what I'd put on a pull out pad. Now the problem becomes getting support for those things...

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#176

Post by mywacaday »

wazoox wrote: post #124
seanhunter wrote: post #110

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.

It really depends if it needs a case or not, my note10+ feels fine with a case and almost too thin when the case is off

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#177

Post by b112 »

studog wrote: post #111
b112 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, plus not losing 1/2 the screen to an on-screen keyboard. Was almost pure android, incredibly secure. Blackberry got it right, then bailed.

Ex-Blackberry here. BB didn't bail; not enough people were buying the phones for hardware manufacturing to be self-sustainable.

Yes, but, you cannot build a new brand in a couple of years. If you look at the Wikipedia article, you'll see the Priv, the first all android Blackberry, was released in 2015, and they bailed in late 2016.

You cannot re-invent a brand in a bit more than a year. They should have expected years to see significant adoption.

Worse, the people who trusted Blackberry, often didn't want a Chinese company making their hardware.

Sad really.

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#178

Post by varispeed »

fsflover wrote: post #143
varispeed wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never needed customer support for a phone and never done any updates (I have not updated my phone for like 3 years, because I know the next update disables call recording). I'd love a phone with good specs, as many open parts as possible and with all schematics and BOM so I could fix it myself if something goes wrong.

> I have not updated my phone for like 3 years So you are using an outdated browser with security bugs? Good luck with that...

I think the browser itself gets updates, but I have not updated the OS. I also only visit a handful of websites that I trust. If I want to "wander off" then I am using Tails on a dedicated computer.

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#179

Post by andagainagain »

faichai wrote: post #62
adenozine wrote: post #41

Nerd in me: This is badass, I want one. Brooklyn in me: My entire office is going to absolutely clown me for life if they ever see me with this goofy thing. It's a brave device, that's for sure.

Going to school, age 17, in 1995 gleefully making notes on a Psion Series 3a was brave! Carrying around a no-name phone in 2021 that your friends take the piss out of, means you just need new friends.

once I stopped respecting coworkers personal decisions, it made more sense to just ignore them and get what makes sense to me.

they don't like my phone, too bad for them. I don't like theirs.

Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard

#180

Post by silicon2401 »

antibuddy wrote: post #125
blandflakes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I find that it works astonishingly poorly. Autocorrect is often wrong, sometimes showing the right thing milliseconds before second-guessing itself into a totally wrong word, so now I'm having to backspace because for some reason typing the actual letters I want is bad user interface. Agreed regarding target audience, though.

I have a hybrid experience where I really need swipe to get things done fast, but I always disable autocorrect, because when I actually type I don't like to be corrected. This way I can put the anger on me rather than the software.

I'm the same way. Nothing makes me want to throw a device through the wall like it autocorrecting me in a way I don't want. this is actually a reason I still use android phones even though I agree iphone probably has better security
Post reply on HN