I've had phones with landscape and portrait mode keyboards, and the latter were invariably better. Maybe it's just that Palm and RIM were better at making keyboards, but I'm not interested in a landscape keyboard at this point
Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
251–260 of 358 posts
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#252I wonder why such devices have such a "meh" processor. This thing has a worse one than my several year old OnePlus 5. Don't know if it can do HDMI or DisplayPort output, but assuming that (and using a bluetooth keyboard and mouse) it might be a ultra-portable work machine for me, so I don't need to schlep my laptop around. But not with a meh processor, then it is only a phone with a keyboard.
Most SoC manufacturers are very user/developer hostile or just sloppy. It takes a long time to clean up the mess to the degree that you can run a decent OS.
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#253There'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's kind of crazy to me that people are concerned about the thickness of phones, yet nobody bats an eye when they keep getting bigger and bigger in the other dimensions. I guess screen size trumps all other concerns.
Right. My Palm Pre fit in my pocket better than any modern smartphone where almost all models are starting to push a 6" diagonal. The corner invariably digs into my hip when I sit down.
For women it matters less since pockets in women's clothing are a joke
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can have both, with no drawbacks. My favourite phone ever designed was the BlackBerry Priv. It was an Android-based smartphone with a full-sized (5.4in) touchscreen, an completely-hidden slide-out physical keyboard, that also doubled as a touch-sensitive pad. You could "swipe" (touchscreen-style) over the keys, and then press down on those same physical keys simultaneously. But you could also slide it back into t…
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.
My KeyOne is actually better due to losing half the screen - I remember trying to open a webpage and a notes app and type in some notes from the page. My Oneplus 3, whenever I pulled up the keyboard, would shift everything up, making it impossible to see what I had focused on. My KeyOne never shifted the view though, because the keyboard was already there.
Even better is the effect this has on battery life. The screen is the biggest battery drain on nearly every phone, and so having a little less means my phone lasts all weekend on a single charge. Because I don't watch video on my phone (or read the bottom half of the screen) anyways, there's really no drawback for me to "losing" a third of my screen, only benefits
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's kind of crazy to me that people are concerned about the thickness of phones, yet nobody bats an eye when they keep getting bigger and bigger in the other dimensions. I guess screen size trumps all other concerns.
It's to do with pockets, at a guess. There's no penalty for expanding in the height and width dimensions up to the limits of a back pocket, which is comparatively huge. If you expand in the depth direction, the pocket can't expand far before it starts to feel uncomfortable, particularly if you sit on it.
People put phones in their back pockets?
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's kind of crazy to me that people are concerned about the thickness of phones, yet nobody bats an eye when they keep getting bigger and bigger in the other dimensions. I guess screen size trumps all other concerns.
It's to do with pockets, at a guess. There's no penalty for expanding in the height and width dimensions up to the limits of a back pocket, which is comparatively huge. If you expand in the depth direction, the pocket can't expand far before it starts to feel uncomfortable, particularly if you sit on it.
I put my phone in my front pocket. My front pocket can accommodate reasonably thick items like my wallet, but if they're too wide and long, it interferes with my ability to bend at the waist.
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#257Would rather have a heavily upgraded N900
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Then haptic feedback made it so touching the screen feels better ACTUAL MECHANICAL HAPTICS vs vibrating-slab-of-glass vs non-vibrating-slab-of-glass cough yeah, have fun with your glass bricks
Once 'haptic' found its way into phone marketing, 'a slab of glass that vibrates when you touch it' quickly supplanted any more complete definition of the word in this context.
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess someone has never been in a car crash. Or had to fix a problem on the train home after leaving work. Must be nice.
Emergency mode on an iPhone is activated with physical buttons. If I’m on the train leaving work, I have my laptop in my bag... This device is really interesting, but I agree that the product market fit is slim.
I can tell you from several unfortunate emergency experiences that you don’t just call 911. In fact if you are the one in the accident, it’s often the case that someone else calls 911 before you find your phone. What you do is call or text your family/coworkers/significant other/etc. I mean I won’t buy a phone just for this use case, but someone who routinely works in harsh environments might.
As far as programming on the phone, I used to leave my computer at work and have a computer at home. On the commute I would only have my phone. If I am at the grocery store and the client calls and says their server is acting funny, I might not want to wait to SSH to it from home or run to the office.
I think this is all a moot point in that you are right: at this point most people don’t have the need for a physical keyboard. But at the same time, I think some small subset of people will want a physical keyboard.
Re: Pro1 X: A Linux smartphone with slideout keyboard
#260For 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?
> born and raised touching the screen
What does this have to do with the market? People don't want physical keyboards because they are "used to" them. They want because the experience of typing is different.